Pres. Park urges preventing NK from `daring` to launch attack

President Park Geun-hye chaired a meeting of foreign affairs and security-related ministers Tuesday for the first time since her inauguration. The agenda was coping with the North’s successive threats of aggression in recent weeks.

“Our security situation is very grave at this point,” the president said at the meeting. “It is essential that we launch a strong counterattack if North Korea launches aggression, but what`s more important is to curb Pyongyang from even daring to think of aggression through our strong diplomatic and military deterrence.”

The meeting was hastily decided on the previous evening. As all briefings on foreign affairs and national security ended, President Park is known to have felt the need to bring together all related ministries and examine comprehensively pending issues and countermeasures. "By considering situations going forward, I will frequently convene meetings of foreign affairs and security-related ministers and the National Security Council, and continuously prepare measures,” she said.

In the meantime, the U.S. has reportedly established an organization exclusively tasked with taking control of nuclear facilities in North Korea in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula, including a collapse of the communist regime.

In late last year, the U.S. Defense Department established under the U.S. 8th Army Command in South Korea an organization for penetrating and taking hold of nuclear facilities across North Korea in the event of a situation entailing swift change, according to ranking sources with the South Korean and U.S. governments. The organization is reportedly tasked with establishing and implementing detailed operational plans, including taking control of nuclear weapons from facilities believed to house them quickly by deploying U.S. troops in South Korea and additional U.S. forces from overseas, if and when the North Korean leadership loses control over its nuclear weapons due to a coup or rebellion. The intent is to prevent nuclear materials within the North from being taken over by anti-government militia or external terrorist groups.

Targets for removal are known to include nuclear material plants, including the Yongbyon nuclear complex that North Korea announced it would resume operation at Tuesday, and small-scale uranium enrichment facilities operated in secret in the North`s border regions with China. A military source in Seoul said, “The organization’s major tasks will include safely securing nuclear weapons and materials in the North, taking control of nuclear-related facilities and technology institutions, arrest of key figures, and the gathering of classified information.”

Top brass of the South Korean and U.S. military reportedly conducted a mock tactical drill to remove nuclear weapons in the North for the first time by taking advantage of this organization in their recent military exercise Key Resolve.

egija@donga.com