The people of Yeonpyeong Island remember with trepidation the devastating attack of November 2010. Since the Cheonan incident in March 2010 and chastened by the attack last year, South Korea has beefed up its military arsenal and strengthened its defence preparedness.
North Korea is unlikely to abandon its nuclear weapon development programme which has deterrence value especially considering that it does not trust China to come to its rescue in case of a threat to its security.
The summit ended with the hope of increased cooperation in East Asia, bolstered popular support for Sino-Japanese friendship, and set out a strategy for maintaining regional peace, stability and prosperity.
If peace is to prevail in East Asia, Pyongyang must abandon its uranium enrichment programme and all aspects of its nuclear programme should be placed under international monitoring.
In response to increasing North Korean hostilities, South Korea’s Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin unveiled a 73-point military reform measures in early March 2011
The temporary hope of peace returning to the Korean peninsula following North Korea’s peace overtures dissipated no sooner than it started when North Korean negotiators walked out of the meeting room at the DMZ in Panmunjam.
North Korea’s offer of a dialogue is unlikely to elicit a positive response from South Korea which instead is militarily drawing closer to Japan to enhance deterrence.
Soon after naming the North Korean regime as its “enemy”, South Korea has, quite abruptly, invoked the desirability of reverting to the Six-Party Talks.
South Korea relives the Yeonpyeong attack by North Korea
The people of Yeonpyeong Island remember with trepidation the devastating attack of November 2010. Since the Cheonan incident in March 2010 and chastened by the attack last year, South Korea has beefed up its military arsenal and strengthened its defence preparedness.