S.Korean president orders stern readiness against DPRK provocations

SEOUL - President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea (ROK) on Thursday instructed security officials to keep a stern military readiness against possible provocations from the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Park chaired a meeting of top military intelligence and police officials at the presidential office, saying the military"should deter DPRK provocations"by maintaining a firm military preparedness"without any holes" in a situation that security on the Korean Peninsula is increasingly unpredictable.

The president said firm security and military defense is the most important base in a road to opening an era of the unified Korea, denouncing the DPRK for continuing its development of nuclear weapons and long-range missile and maintaining its strategy of developing nuclear bombs and stimulating the economy.

The ROK offered in December to hold high-level talks with the DPRK in January to discuss all issues of mutual concern, but Pyongyang has kept mum about the proposal and has said that Seoul should accept preconditions such as the stop of anti-DPRK leaflets and the suspension of joint annual war games with the United States this year.

Park said the DPRK has continued threat of provocations while demanding various preconditions for South Korea's dialogue offer. She said the peninsula's security situations became hard to predict after the DPRK's hacking attack against Sony Pictures, in which Pyongyang has denied its involvement.

Her comments came ahead of joint annual military exercises between Seoul and Washington scheduled for early March to April. The DPRK proposed to suspend its nuclear tests in return for the halt of the joint drills, a proposal flatly rejected by the two countries.