The chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization visited the heavily fortified inter-Korean border Saturday amid heightened cross-border tensions triggered by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s visit to the neutral truce village of Panmunjeom comes as North Korea is reportedly moving to launch another missile that could escalate the already high tension on the divided Korean Peninsula, the Cold War’s last frontier.
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NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (second from right) looks over the inter-Korean border during his visit at the truce village of Panmunjeom in Paju on Saturday. (Yonhap News) |
According to experts in Seoul, the missile North Korea is ready to fire is estimated to have a range of up to 4,000 kilometers, long enough to cover all of South Korea and Japan and reach as far as the U.S. territory of Guam. The Pentagon has beefed up its anti-missile defense system on the Pacific island.
Rasmussen’s trip to the Korean Demilitarized Zone is the first by a NATO chief since the organization was launched in 1949. His visit is seen as a strong show of support for South Korea.
He arrived in Seoul Thursday for a three-day stay. Rasmussen met with President Park Geun-hye, Foreign Minister Yoon Byung-se and Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin over security cooperation and escalating North Korea’s military threats.
On Friday, he called on North Korea to stop provocations and give up weapons of mass destruction programs, stressing the communist state’s bellicose attitude posed a serious threat to the region and beyond.
“We are watching with grave concern a series of statements, missile launches and nuclear tests. They pose a serious threat to regional and international peace, security and stability,” he said during a press conference in Seoul.
“I urge the North Korean authorities to immediately stop such destabilizing actions and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, which are in blatant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
In a meeting with Defense Minister Kim, he appreciated South Korea’s active engagement in a multinational campaign to rebuild Afghanistan and called for continued interest in it.
(From news reports)
