South Korea has called North Korea its enemy for the first time in six years, reviving the label in a biennial defence document that also reported an increase in Pyongyang’s stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium.
Key points:
- A South Korean defence paper says the North Korean government and military is the South’s “enemy”
- The paper cites militaristic rhetoric from the North as well as continued nuclear development and testing
- North Korea now possesses about 70 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, the South says
“[North Korea] doesn’t give up its nukes and is persistently posing military threats to us, so the North Korean government and military … is our enemy,” read the 2022 defence white paper, published on Thursday.
The document noted that North Korea has continued reprocessing spent fuel from its reactor and possesses about 70 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, up from 50 kilograms estimated in the previous report.
It also said the North has secured “substantial” amounts of highly enriched uranium and has a “significant level of capability” to miniaturise atomic bombs, a description that remains unchanged since 2018.
“Our military is strengthening surveillance as the possibility of an additional nuclear test is rising,” the paper said.
The document also cited North Korea’s passing of a new law that authorises the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in a broad range of scenarios, and the fact that in December, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called South Korea “our undoubted enemy” in a speech at a key ruling party meeting.
North Korea conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests in 2022, including simulated nuclear attacks on South Korea.
In response, South Korea’s conservative government, led by President Yoon Suk-yeol, has been seeking a stronger US security commitment and boosting its own military capabilities.
Language change is significant
Changing descriptions of North Korea in South Korea’s defence white papers tend to reflect the rocky ties between the two countries.
Past South Korean documents called North Korea the South’s “main enemy”, “present enemy” or “enemy” in times of animosities with the North. But they avoided such references when relations were improved.
South Korea first called North Korea its “main enemy” in 1995, a year after North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into “sea of fire” — rhetoric the North has since repeatedly used when confrontations flare with the South.
During a previous era of inter-Korean detente in the 2000s, South Korea stopped using “enemy” terminology, but resuscitated it after 50 South Korean navy sailors were killed in a torpedo attack blamed on North Korea in 2010.
Yoon’s liberal predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who espoused greater reconciliation with the North, avoided the use of the label to directly refer to North Korea, with defence documents published during his rule saying South Korea’s military “considers any force that threatens and violates the sovereignty, territory, people, and properties of the Republic of Korea as an enemy”.
Yoon, who took office in May, has vowed a more stern response to North Korean provocation.
North Korea didn’t immediately respond to the revived “enemy” terminology in the 2022 paper, though it has lashed out at use of the label in the past, calling it a provocation that demonstrated South Korean hostility.
AP/Reuters