US, S. Korea Say NKorea Must Pay High Price for Nuclear Test

SEOUL _ North Korea has flown almost 1 million propaganda leaflets by balloon over the heavily fortified border with South Korea, in an escalation of psychological warfare on the Korean peninsula after the Pyongyang regime’s fourth nuclear test earlier this month.

US and South Korean officials have vowed to make North Korea pay a high price for its recent defiant nuclear test.

Park said the military should maintain solid defence readiness over Pyongyang’s possible provocations, noting that the military should immediately retaliate against any North Korea provocation.

Kang told reporters that it was not yet at a stage to say clearly yet, if North Korea was behind the attempt.

The meetings come on the heels of a series of talks between the six-party members as well as a meeting between South Korea’s top nuclear envoy Hwang Joon-kook and his Russian counterpart Igor Morgulov in Moscow on Tuesday.

A Cold War-style stand-off flared after the North’s claim on January 6 that it had tested a hydrogen bomb.

A professor at the North Korean Studies University, Yang Moo Jin, said that President Park’s revelation of the United States and South Korea’s shortcoming from obtaining information on the bomb testing was “disgraceful”. Such leafleting by the North has been rare, however, since the two Korea’s struck a tension-relieving deal past year, which saw the South cut the music and propaganda.

Moreover, an global relations professor at the University of Handong said that South Korea may need more advanced surveillance devices and satellites “in order to prevent Pyongyang from conducting a fifth nuclear test”.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken has arrived in Seoul to coordinate stance with South Korea over North Korea.

Foreign governments and experts remain sceptical about North Korea’s H-bomb claim, although the test is likely to have moved the country closer to having a fully functional nuclear arsenal.

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