Seoul resumes psychological warfare with Pyongyang

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Seoul resumes psychological warfare with Pyongyang

By HYUNG-JIN KIM (AP) – 59 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea resumed propaganda broadcasts into North Korea

in response to a deadly torpedo attack that sank a South Korean warship,

officials said Tuesday, amid a report that North Korea's leader ordered troops

to be ready for combat.

Renewing psychological warfare operations were among measures that South Korea

announced Monday to punish Pyongyang for the March sinking of a navy warship

that left 46 sailors dead.

The United States has thrown its full support behind South Korea's moves to

retaliate, which include slashing trade with the North and taking it to the U.N.

Security Council.

China — North Korea's main ally and aid provider — has so far, however, done

little but urge calm on all sides. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham

Clinton is in Beijing conferring with officials on a coordinated response.

China's top nuclear envoy, meanwhile, huddled with South Korean officials in

Seoul.

South Korea's military resumed radio broadcasts airing Western music, news and

comparisons between the South and North Korean political and economic situations

late Monday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military also planned

to launch propaganda leaflets Tuesday to inform North Koreans about the ship

sinking.

In coming weeks, South Korea will also install dozens of propaganda loudspeakers

and towering electronic billboards along the heavily armed land border between

the two Koreas to send messages enticing communist soldiers to defect to the

South.

The action, which ends a six-year suspension, is expected to draw an angry

response from North Korea. The country's military already warned Monday it would

fire at any propaganda facilities installed in the Demilitarized Zone.

A North Korean monitoring group said Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong

Il last week ordered his 1.2 million-member military to get ready for combat,

shortly after South Korea officially blamed his regime for the March 26 sinking

of its warship Cheonan.

Seoul-based North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, citing unidentified sources in

North Korea, said in a report that the order was read by Gen. O Kuk Ryol, a Kim

confidant, and broadcast on loudspeakers throughout the country Thursday, hours

after the multinational report blaming Pyongyang was issued in Seoul.

South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report. The Defense

Ministry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff said they have not obtained any signs

suggesting unusual activity by North Korea's military.

North Korea has steadfastly denied any role in the ship's sinking, although

international investigators concluded last week that a torpedo from one of its

submarines tore apart the Cheonan in South Korea's worst military disaster since

the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said in a nationally televised speech

Monday that it was another example of " incessant " provocation by North Korea,

including a 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that claimed 115 lives.

" North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts, " Lee said

in a solemn speech at the War Memorial.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended

with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The truce prohibits South Korea from

waging a unilateral military attack, so Seoul sought to strike at Pyongyang's

faltering economy.

Despite their rivalry, South Korea has been Pyongyang's No. 2 trading partner

with $1.68 billion in trade in 2009, or about 33 percent of the North's total,

according to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.

South Korea said it will stop buying shellfish, seafood products, sand and other

products and deny permission to North Korean cargo ships to pass through South

Korean waters. Those measures will cost North Korea about $200 million a year,

said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University.

President Barack Obama's administration endorsed Lee's demand that North Korea

both apologize for the attack, punish those responsible and cease such

provocations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he expects the Security Council

to take action against North Korea, calling the evidence that the North was

responsible " overwhelming and deeply troubling. "

The U.S. and South Korea are planning two major military exercises off the

Korean Peninsula in a display of force intended " to deter future aggression " by

North Korea, the White House said.

The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea — a major sore point for the North —

as well as 47,000 troops in Japan.

Associated Press writers H. Lee, Sangwon Yoon and Olsen in Seoul,

Heilprin at the United Nations, Lee in Beijing, and Ron Powers and

Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.