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S Korean official warns of Northˇ¦s
collapse
AP, SEOUL
Impoverished North Korea could bring its own collapse if it keeps pouring scarce
national resources into its nuclear weapons program and military, a senior South
Korean official warned in an interview that was to be broadcast yesterday.
South Korean officials have used tough language against North Korea after two
deadly attacks last year killed dozens of people.
However, itˇ¦s still rare for a top Seoul official to speak publicly on a
potential North Korean collapse and shows the Southˇ¦s growing impatience with
its communist neighbor.
ˇ§I think they will come to the point where they can no longer sustain the burden
of military expenditures,ˇ¨ Chun Yung-woo told PBS NewsHour, according to part of
the interview posted on the US public broadcasterˇ¦s Web site.
Chun is South Koreaˇ¦s chief presidential adviser on national security and
foreign affairs and once was the Southˇ¦s top negotiator on now-stalled
six-nation talks on the Northˇ¦s nuclear weapons program.
ˇ§They are already suffering from misery ... I think they will be worse off,ˇ¨
Chun said. ˇ§I think their obsession with their military capabilities, especially
weapons of mass destruction like nuclear weapons, chemical weapons ... that
would be a short-cut to their demise.ˇ¨
He said ˇ§the energy for changingˇ¨ North Korea was growing but declined to
predict when that change might happen.
North Koreaˇ¦s state-controlled economy was devastated by natural disasters and
mismanagement in the 1990s, and a botched 2009 currency reform and massive
flooding last year are feared to have worsened it.
But experts say the North still devotes much of its scarce resources to its 1.2
million-member military under its ˇ§army firstˇ¨ policy.
In November, the North unveiled a uranium enrichment facility that could give it
a second way to make atomic bombs in addition to its known plutonium-based
program. North Korea has deployed new types of tanks near the border with the
South and boosted its special operations forces in recent years, an official
South Korean defense document released last month said.
Tension on the peninsula spiked after North Korea unleashed artillery shells on
a front-line South Korean island near their disputed sea border, killing four
people. The shelling came eight months after a deadly warship sinking that the
South and the US have blamed on Pyongyang. The North has denied its
responsibility for the sinking that killed 46 sailors.
Chun said the attacks indicate how desperate North Korea is because of its
economic crisis.
The foreign ministry, meanwhile, denied that Chunˇ¦s comments might indicate that
South Korea was pushing for North Koreaˇ¦s collapse.
Spokesman Kim Young-sun told reporters Seoul still seeks substantial
reconciliation with North Korea, but also keeps a close eye on developments in
the North.
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