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Seoul Denounces Japan Strike Considerations

South Korea denounced reports that Japan was considering an attack on North Korean nuclear facilities, an action that would be breaking with years of precedent established by the country?s post-war constitution, which forswears the Japanese nation from making war. Japanese officials, while not announcing a break in diplomatic efforts, said that all options need to be put in the table in the face of Chinese and Russian unwillingness to pass a UN resolution which includes sanctions on Pyongyang, which defied the international community, and ally China, when it test-launched seven missiles last week.

South Korea has good reason to fear the after-effects of any potential attack on North Korea, no matter who carries it out. Seoul, the Korean capital, is only a short distance away from the 38th parallel, which has separated North and South since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s. South Korea?s leadership has been pursuing a ?sunshine policy? of rapprochement with its Stalinist neighbor to the north, and though progress has been stymied by North Korea?s missile-brinkmanship, military action is far from desirous for Seoul.

Officials speaking for South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun said Japanese consideration of military force ? the State of Japan only has a 244,000-strong Self-Defense Force, in keeping with constitutional constraints following Japan?s defeat in the Second World War ? was a result of a sense of resurgent militarism in the country, while Japanese officials stressed that hitting military facilities might fall under the rubric of self-defense, but was by no means an abandonment of current diplomatic efforts. The Korean Peninsula was at one time under the domination of Japan.