North Korea scraps armistice and shuts down hotline

Officials in Pyongyang insist it will pull out of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and reserved the right carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The threats have sent diplomatic shockwaves across the region.

China, North Korea’s only major ally, called for both regions to show restraint, while South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye said the security situation was “very grave”.

The North Korean announcement, broadcast on state media, said the North was cancelling all non-aggression pacts with the South and closing the main Panmunjom border crossing inside the demilitarised zone.

Meanwhile the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was seen on state television inspecting military defences in the south of the country.

US defence machinery

The Whitehouse responded early this morning insisting that it the country was capable of defending its assets against a North Korean ballistic missile attack.

Condemning the “extreme rhetoric”, officials in Washington alluded to the development of US defence systems designed to protect bases from long-range missiles.

Among them is the “Ground-Based Interceptor” initiated by George Bush’s administration because of concern over the North Korean threat.

In East Asia, the US has deployed the land-based Patriot system and the sea-based Aegis systems, which are designed to intercept shorter-range missiles.

Glyn Davies, one of the leading US diplomats in North Korea, has cautioned Pyongyang not to miscalculate, saying the US will take necessary steps to defend itself and its allies, including South Korea, where it bases nearly 30,000 U.S. forces.

“We take all North Korean threats seriously enough to ensure that we have the correct defense posture to deal with any contingencies that might arise,” Davies told reporters after testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The threat from the North Koreans came ahead of a unanimous vote in the UN Security Council yesterday that approved its toughest sanctions yet on the North in response to an atomic test last month.

Testing times

North Korea has now conducted three nuclear tests. In the past year, it has made strides toward its goal of having a nuclear weapon that could threaten the U.S. although experts doubt it yet has the capability to hit the U.S. with a ballistic missile or miniaturise a nuclear device to mount on such a missile.

However, the North possesses hundreds of shorter-range missiles that could hit U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea, said Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

North and South Korea are technically still at war after their 1950-1953 conflict ended with an armistice, but not a peace treaty. They are separated by a demilitarised zone, one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world.

Tension through the years: a war waiting to happen?

January 1951: North Korean leader and founder Kim Il Sung says in a speech that U.S. and South Korean forces invaders and had prompted his army to retaliate. Kim vows to annihilate the North's enemies.

January 1952: Kim Il Sung likens US forces to Nazis and says that the war is turning into a mass grave for US forces. 
May 1972: Kim Il Sung tells The New York Times that perceived U.S. hostility means "we are always making preparations for war. We do not conceal this matter." 
March 1993: North Korea declares a "semi-state of war" to protest joint U.S.-South Korean war games that it says threaten its security. Amid a standoff with Washington over its nuclear program, it also threatens to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 
1994: A North Korean negotiator threatens to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire." September 1996: North Korea threatens "hundredfold and thousandfold retaliation" against South Korean troops that captured armed North Korean agents who had used a submarine to sneak into the South. 
January 2002: President George Bush labels North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran; Pyongyang calls the remark "little short of a declaration of war." 
May 2010: After a Seoul-led international investigation blames a North Korean torpedo for the sinking of a South Korea warship that killed 46 sailors, Pyongyang issues a denial and warns of a "prompt physical strike." 
November 2011: A day after South Korea conducts large-scale military drills near the island hit by the North in 2010, the North's Korean People's Army threatens to turn Seoul's presidential palace into a "sea of fire." 
April 2012: North Korea holds a massive rally denouncing conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak as a "rat." It says he should be struck with a "retaliatory bolt of lightning" because of his confrontational approach toward Pyongyang. 
June 2012: North Korea's military warns that troops have aimed artillery at seven South Korean media groups to express outrage over criticism in Seoul of ongoing children's festivals in Pyongyang. It threatens a "merciless sacred war." 
October 2012: A spokesman warns that the US is within range of its missiles and says Washington's recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of North Korea shows the allies are plotting to invade the North.