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Park calls for strengthening military power

January 5, 2016

SEOUL (Yonhap) — President Park Geun-hye called Tuesday for strengthening military power in a move widely seen as South Korea’s latest efforts to deter North Korea’s possible provocations.

South Korea has set aside 38.8 trillion won (US$33.2 billion) for its defense budget this year, up 3.6 percent from a year earlier.

“It is my hope that we can make a peaceful Korean Peninsula to ensure our people can get away from North Korea’s provocations and threats,” Park said in a Cabinet meeting.

She also said South Korea should not let its guard down even for a moment, citing an unspecified crucial period in terms of security.

For decades, North Korea has a track record of carrying out provocations against South Korea, including the sinking of a South Korean warship and the shelling of a South Korean border island, both in 2010, that killed 50 South Koreans.

Park called on Cabinet officials to make efforts to improve inter-Korean relations.

In his New Year’s message, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed efforts to improve ties with South Korea, saying that he is open to talks with Seoul in an open-minded manner for unification.

The two Koreas produced a rare deal in August to defuse military tension sparked by a land mine blast near the inter-Korean border blamed on North Korea. The attack maimed two South Korean soldiers.

Park has repeatedly pushed for a peaceful unification, calling it a “bonanza” for South Korea and a blessing for neighboring countries.

North Korea has long suspected that the South is plotting to absorb it, a claim denied by South Korea.

One Comment

  1. Horangih Gomtoki

    January 5, 2016 at 2:38 PM

    Let’s get serious. Yes, NK is ruled by a nasty regime, but it is powerless. It poses no threat to China, Russia, or Japan. And none to the US. It may pose some threat to SK but SK has more than double the population and 40x the economy. SK should be able to defend itself in case of war. With such numerical and economic advantage, isn’t it shameful for SK to still cower behind the US military for protection? SK is a nation of cowards. It begs US for protection while turning its boys into sissies who listen to K-pop and use cosmetics on their faces.

    All these antics by NK are essentially defensive because US has been destroying nation after nation in the MIddle East. After what US did to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, it should be obvious that US is the #1 aggressor in the world, the main imperialist power that creates mayhem.

    http://harpers.org/archive/2016/01/a-special-relationship/

    Besides, US backs Israel, a nation created through ethnic cleansing and colonization far worse than what the Japanese did to Korea. (Also, keep in mind that NK only exists because US decided to divide Korea in half and hand the norther half to Stalin. For some reason, neither US nor SK ever mentions that the division of Korea was primarily the fault of FDR and Truman. South Koreans demand that Japanese apologize for comfort women but they never demand that America apologize for the division of Korea and the use of Korean women as prostitutes for over 70 yrs.)

    NK is ruled by bad people, but it is no serious threat.
    US is the main provoker of tensions in Asia because it wants to be the only superpower. Also, US wants Korea to remain divided forever because it wants to keep SK forever as a toady puppet. US knows that if Korea unites, Koreans will feel more independent and nationalist. And US military will no longer have any reason to be stationed in Korea. And then Korea will move closer to China, its historical neighbor. THAT is why US keeps provoking tensions. US wants a permanent division of the Koreas and it wants to sell more arms to SK. And US uses Korean-American collaborators to spread multi-culturalism and homosexual agenda and trashy American culture in South Korea. That way, as South Korea becomes more globalized, it will have less and less in common with North Korea racially and culturally. And then, it will be much more difficult for South and North to reunite.

    Kim Jong Un is a retard and a real shi*. But he is just a child throwing tantrums. He poses no real threat to anyone. North Korea just acts tough because it fears that US will do to it what the US did to Iraq, Libya, and Syria(and Ukraine).
    US wants to keep SK as its prostitute-puppet forever, and the most effective way is to keep the two Koreas separate.
    US also likes the fact that South Koreans are racially self-loathing. They feel ugly and get plastic surgery and change hair color to look white and western. With such wanna-be-white mentality, South Koreans have come to see North Koreans as ‘too Asian’ and ‘ugly’. South Koreans may live in a democracy, but they are cultural and political whores of the US and globalism. And as multi-cultural immigration makes Korea less ethnically Korean, it will have less and less in common with NK that is homogeneously Korean. And then, the two Koreas will never reunite. The great crime of the US in dividing Korea in two will be permanent, and SK will forever by America’s bitch. If South Korea unites globally with the US empire, it will never reunite with North Korea.

    But you guys at Korea Times USA serve as puppets of the US empire. You are no different from the Koreans who served the Japanese empire and called for the erasure of Koreanness. Back then, Japan tried to erase Korean identity and language. Today, South Koreans under American influence use plastic surgery, hair-dyeing, and race-mixing(usually white and black men sexually colonizing Korean women who have lost respect for their own men) to erase and destroy essential Korean-ness. South Koreans and Korean-Americans want to turn South Korea into something like Hawaii where the native population is now down to only 20% of the whole while most of the island is inhabited by whites and Asians. Do Koreans want to end up in Korea like native Hawiians in Hawaii?

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