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Hundreds of troops, fighter jets and tanks prepared for exercises a month after North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong island
South Korea today vowed today to "punish the enemy" as hundreds of troops, fighter jets, tanks and attack helicopters prepared for new military drills near the heavily armed border a month after a North Korean artillery attack.
Although the North backed down on Monday from its threat to retaliate over the drills in west coast waters claimed by both countries, South Korean forces have been on high alert, warning of surprise attacks.
Pyongyang responded to a 23 November artillery drill on South Korea's frontline Yeonpyeong island with an artillery bombardment in which four people, including two civilians, were killed.
The North has made some conciliatory gestures in recent days, telling a visiting US governor that it might allow international nuclear inspections of its atomic programmes, but Seoul is prepared for possible aggression.
"We will completely punish the enemy if it provokes us again like the shelling of Yeonpyeong island," Brigadier General Ju Eun-sik, the chief of the army's 1st Armoured Brigade, said.
South Korea's navy began annual four-day firing and anti-submarine exercises off the less tense east coast today.
The disputed western sea border has been the site of most of the recent military skirmishes between the two Koreas, including last month's artillery bombardment, but the east coast has been used by North Korea as a submarine route for communist agents to infiltrate the South.
South Korea's army said tomorrow's planned firing drills near the land border – the 48th of their kind this year – would be the biggest wintertime joint firing exercise the army and air force had staged. It would involve 800 troops, F-15K and KF-16 jet fighters, K-1 tanks, AH-1S attack helicopters and K-9 self-propelled guns.
South Korea had planned to conduct 47 drills of this type this year, but decided to conduct one more because of tension with the North, an army officer, speaking anonymously, said.
North Korea, meanwhile, indicated to the visiting New Mexico governor, Bill Richardson, that it was prepared to consider ways to work with the South on restoring security along the border.
Richardson praised Pyongyang for refraining from retaliation and said his visit to the North provided an opening for a resumption of negotiations aimed at dismantling its nuclear programme.
North Korea pulled out of six-nation talks to provide Pyongyang with aid in exchange for disarmament in April 2009, but has since said it is willing to resume them.
The White House rejected the idea, saying the North needed to change its "belligerent" behaviour and was not "even remotely ready" for negotiations.
In Seoul, a senior South Korean government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the military would remain prepared for the possibility of a "surprise" attack in coming days.Yesterday, a church illuminated a huge steel Christmas tree on top of a South Korean peak overlooking North Korean border towns, resuming a tradition condemned in Pyongyang as propaganda.
The lighting – which needed government permission – was a sign that President Lee Myung-bak's administration is serious about countering the North's aggression with measures of its own in the wake of Pyongyang's artillery bombardment.
The North warned that the tree could trigger bloodshed on the peninsula.
For decades, the rival Koreas have fought an ideological war, using leaflets, loudspeakers and radio broadcasts across the border. At the height of the propaganda, South Korea's military speakers blared messages near the border 20 hours a day, officials said.
South Korea halted the campaign, including the Christmas tree lighting, about seven years ago as ties between the Koreas warmed in an era of reconciliation.
The church had sought government permission to light the tree over the years, but it had been denied until this year.
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