President Park Geun-hye instructed South Korea's military Monday to set aside any political considerations and respond powerfully in the event of North Korean provocations, as Pyongyang has churned out near-daily threats of war on the divided peninsula.
Park made the unusually tough remark during a policy briefing at the defense ministry, saying she takes "very seriously" a recent string of North Korean moves and threats, such as the scrapping of a nonaggression treaty, the cutoff of a military hotline and the weekend declaration that inter-Korean ties have entered a "state of war."
"The reason for the military's existence is to protect the country and the people from threats. If any provocations happen against our people and our country, it should respond powerfully in the early stage without having any political considerations," Park said.
"As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, I will trust the military's judgment on abrupt and surprise provocations by North Korea as it is the one that directly faces off against the North," she said.
"Please carry out your duty of guarding the safety of the people without getting distracted even a bit."
In recent weeks, Pyongyang has sharply ratcheted up tensions with repeated war threats against the South in anger over joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States as well as a new U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in response to its third nuclear test on Feb. 12.
It has declared the 1953 armistice, which ended the three-year Korean War, null and void, severed all hotlines with the South and threatened to launch nuclear attacks on South Korea and the mainland United States.
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