10 March,2009 02:26 PM IST | | Agencies
North Korea yesterday cut its military hotline to Seoul and put its million-man army at battle stations, ratcheting up tensions as South Korean and US troops began war games that Pyongyang warned could spark open conflict.
UN forces last week tried to counter North Korean claims that the exercises were a smokescreen for an invasion by promising to keep the hotline open, giving Pyongyang advance warning of anything that could cause a misunderstanding, reported the Financial Times.
North Korea's official KCNA news agency quoted an army spokesman as saying: "It is nonsensical to maintain the normal channels of communication when the South Korean puppets are in a frenzy about these military exercises, levelling their guns at fellow countrymen in league with foreign forces."
Severing military communications had an immediate effect on workers trying to reach South Korea's investment zone at Kaesong in North Korea. Some 726 South Koreans could not reach their factories in Kaesong on Monday because all crossings require clearance on the military hotline.
The communist state also warned that any attempt to shoot down a rocket it plans to launch soon would be an act of war. Pyongyang argues it is simply planning to blast a satellite into space whereas spies insist this is a ruse for testing the Taepodong-2 long-range missile, which could hit Alaska.
South Korea said it deeply regretted North Korea's moves and sought the immediate resumption of traffic to and from Kaesong.
"As we have mentioned several times, the US-South Korean exercises are defensive in nature and are part of annual training," said Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for the unification ministry.
This latest move comes in the wake of exceptionally bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang in recent months. The reclusive state has torn up its non-aggression pacts with the South, vowed not to recognise a tense maritime border and last week said it could not guarantee the safety of South Korean passenger aircraft in its airspace.
