Report says Seoul prepared to reduce Pyongyang to ashes

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

South Korea is ready to “completely destroy” Pyongyang and potential hiding places for senior North Korean officials, according to a Seoul military source Sunday.

The warning falls in line with an explicit mention of a preemptive strike out of the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff a couple of days earlier, when the North conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date.

With Pyongyang repeatedly insisting it will continue to develop nuclear weapons while also issuing specific threats against South Korea and the United States, Seoul is raising its defense posture.

“Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon,” the military source was quoted as saying by local news agency Yonhap.

“In other words, the North's capital city will be reduced to ashes and removed from the map.”

The revelation was apparently based on a plan submitted by the defense ministry to lawmakers last week.

Meanwhile, Seoul is publicly trying to gather support from the international community for tougher sanctions aimed at reining in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The United Nations Security Council has already vowed to draw up a new resolution targeting the North.

But conservative lawmakers in South Korea have been raising concerns that such punitive measures have previously failed to deter Pyongyang from conducting a series of nuclear and ballistic missile tests in defiance of previous U.N. resolutions.

With dissenting voices growing louder, the South’s government is under pressure to consider a nuclear response.

Seoul, however, is bound to an agreement with Washington preventing indigenous nukes and placing the country under American protection.

Bolstered by nearly 30,000 U.S. troops and military hardware, South Korea has an array of defensive options including its own missiles.

North Korea has been joined by China in opposing the expanding U.S. presence in the region, such as the forthcoming deployment of a new anti-missile system in the South known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense).