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Discord between Seoul and Tokyo over North Korea¡¯s missile tests last week is deepening, with Cheong Wa Dae issuing a biting attack on Japanese musings about military strikes against the North on Tuesday. The development comes amid what is already the biggest chill in bilateral ties since Korea and Japan resumed relations in 1965, prompted by a range of other issues including persistent Japanese claims to Korea¡¯s Dokdo islets.
¡°Japanese government officials are talking about possible pre-emptive strikes against the Korean Peninsula and the legitimacy of using force in a certain scenario. This is a serious situation,¡± Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Jung Tae-ho told reporters. ¡°Such remarks are serious threats to peace on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia.¡± Tokyo¡¯s Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe earlier said Japan could strike the North¡¯s missile launch base if no other solution is forthcoming.
¡°Those remarks clearly show Japan has invasive ambitions and that we must be on our guard against them,¡± Jung said. ¡°We will respond strongly to the arrogant and thoughtless remarks of Japanese politicians who try to stoke a crisis on the peninsula and take advantage of the situation to build up their military.¡±
Abe, a hardline hopeful as next prime minister, had cited opinion that strikes against the missile launch bases were within the right to self-defense guaranteed in Japan¡¯s pacifist postwar Constitution.
The Korean response was the result of a Cheong Wa Dae staff meeting under President Roh Moo-hyun and attended by security chief Song Min-soon earlier in the day. It is the second shot at Tokyo from the presidential office this week after a message on the Cheong Wa Dae website for allegedly using North Korea¡¯s missile tests as a convenient excuse to build up its military.
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok echoed the sentiment. ¡°When it comes to security threats, North Korea poses a microscopic one in the short term, but we can¡¯t deny the that Japan poses one in the long term and from a historical point of view,¡± Lee said. He registered ¡°surprise¡± at Tokyo¡¯s talk of military strikes on North Korea.
Top officials here are also unhappy that Japan did not consult South Korea before drafting a UN Security Council resolution to sanction the North which mentions ¡°use of force¡± under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.
Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung on Monday called in Japanese Ambassador to Korea Shotaro Oshima to inform him the government will not support the resolution.
That shows the deep cracks in the cooperative triangle of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan set up to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. While Tokyo drafted the resolution, it is in constant touch with the U.S. on the issue, with the two foreign ministers talking by phone again Tuesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi himself has come out to denounce the earlier message on the Cheong Wa Dae website, but there was no immediate response to the Korean statements on Tuesday.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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