 |  | US and South Korean soldiers in a joint military exercise on March 10, 2009. The two country?s troops went on higher alert on Thursday. -- PHOTO: AFP |
SEOUL - SOUTH Korean and US troops on Thursday went on higher alert after North Korea announced it is scrapping the armistice in force on the peninsula, Seoul's defence ministry said.
'As of 7.15 am Thursday (2215 GMT on Wednesday, 6.15am Singapore time), the US-South Korea Combined Forces Command upgraded Watch Conditions by a notch to Stage Two,' the Seoul defence ministry said in a statement.
'Surveillance over the North will be stepped up, with more aircraft and personnel mobilised,' said ministry spokesman Won Tae-Jae.
North Korea said on Wednesday it was abandoning the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and warned it could launch a military attack on the South, two days after testing an atomic bomb for the second time.
It also threatened military action on against US and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas' disputed maritime border, raising the spectre of a naval clash just days after the regime's underground nuclear test.
Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul's decision to join an international programme to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called the move tantamount to a declaration of war.
'Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,' North Korea is 'compelled to take a decisive measure,' the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.
North Korea's latest belligerence comes as the UN Security Council debates how to punish the regime for testing a nuclear bomb on Monday in what President Barack Obama called a 'blatant violation' of international law.
Ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - as well as Japan and South Korea were working out the details of a new resolution. -- AFP, AP
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