The Korean peninsula is on \u201cedge\u201d again, as a new war of words is breaking out between North and South Korea.\u00a0 Veteran Korea watchers tell Fox News they are concerned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is pretty drastic,\u201d Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group told Fox News from Seoul, \u201ceverybody is on alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Swenson-Wright, Korea expert at London\u2019s Chatham House, called the developments a \u201cserious situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
After South Korea formally accused the North of torpedoing its ship the Cheonan, killing 46, and described the North as its principal enemy, Pyongyang has retaliated\u2026with rhetoric.<\/p>\n
The North Korea state news agency said Tuesday Pyongyang would \u201csever ties\u201d with the South.<\/p>\n
More significant, according to experts, is word from a dissident group that the North\u2019s National Defense Commission has put North Koreans on \u201cfull combat alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the order has not been confirmed, ICG\u2019s Pinkston calls the report \u201ccredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Chatham House\u2019s Swenson-Wright, described the announcement as \u201csignificant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot is riding on the next few days,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
As expert Swenson-Wright noted, there remain \u00a0\u201c\u2026a lot of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
One question is why the North would possibly want to trigger a new conflict.<\/p>\n
Most point to a possible succession crisis with an ailing Kim Jong-Il apparently looking to pass his post to his son. The military moves, according to Swenson-Wright could be used for \u201cdomestic consumption\u201d to bolster the stature of the regime.<\/p>\n
The other question is whether these new words could turn into new actions.<\/p>\n
So far, according to Seoul-based Pinkston there have no \u201cunusual movements\u201d of North Korean military personnel and \u00a0no signs of actual mobilization.<\/p>\n
However, what Pinkston does note is that in tense situations like this, the risk of \u201cmiscalculation\u201d by either side, is very real.<\/p>\n
Which is why the region remains tense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Korean peninsula is on \u201cedge\u201d again, as a new war of words is breaking out between North and South Korea.\u00a0 Veteran Korea watchers tell Fox News they are concerned. \u201cThis is pretty drastic,\u201d Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group told Fox News from Seoul, \u201ceverybody is on alert.\u201d John Swenson-Wright, Korea expert at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4512,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}