S Korea orders troops on alert, says N Korea test genuine

SEOUL: South Korea called an emergency meeting of its top military commanders on Tuesday and ordered the armed forces to stay alert as it weighed its response to communist North Korea's declared nuclear test.   

Unification Minister Lee Jong-Seok separately told a special session in parliament that the government believes North Korea did conduct a nuclear test, despite some uncertainty overseas.   

Seoul, still technically at war with the secretive Pyongyang regime half a century after the Korean conflict, has said it will never tolerate a nuclear-armed North.   

Defence Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung summoned the meeting of about 50 senior commanders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the army, navy and air force chiefs.   

Yoon ordered the country's 650,000-strong military to "maintain steadfast combat readiness" to prevent North Korea miscalculating the situation.   

"North Korea's nuclear test is a grave threat to stability and peace in Northeast Asia, and it is an absolutely unpardonable provocative act that defeats the expectations of our government and people," Yonhap news agency quoted him as telling the closed-door meeting.   

The military chiefs were to assess security and discuss the response to the announced nuclear test which shocked the world, the defence ministry said.   

The military has increased troop numbers near land and sea borders, but is maintaining its normal official alert level.   

Protesters again took to the streets to vent anger. About 70-80 demonstrators in central Seoul set alight a mock missile plastered with a North Korean flag and a picture of the North's leader Kim Jong-Il.   

Scuffles broke out with firemen who tried to douse the blaze. Scores of people signed a "Down with Kim Jong-Il" petition. President Roh Moo-Hyun, under fire over his "sunshine" policy of engaging the North, met his predecessors over lunch to seek their views. Kim Dae-Jung, Kim Young-Sam and Chun Doo-Hwan attended.   

Kim Young-Sam, whose 1993-98 term was marked by cold relations with the North, said the engagement policy should be renounced and all joint economic projects suspended, including the Kaesong industrial zone and the Mount Kumgang tourist resort.   

The two projects launched by South Korea's Hyundai Group have been a major source of hard currency for the isolated and impoverished North. Hyundai has invested 1.5 trillion won (1.56 billion dollars) in them.   

Analysts said Roh faces a tough choice. Halting Kumgang and Kaesong could lead the North to further escalate the situation, said Peter Beck, Northeast Asia director of the International Crisis Group.   

"I think the next card that the North will play if things escalate is to threaten war, which is what they did in 1993-94 when they threatened to turn Seoul into a sea of fire," he said.   

Roh also held a breakfast meeting with ruling and opposition leaders to seek their views on his next move. He has vowed a "stern but calm" response but not said exactly how he will respond.   

The government said it believes the test was genuine but it could take two weeks to decide if it was a success, as the North claims.   

Lee Jong-Seok, in charge of North Korean affairs, said the government did not yet recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear power pending analysis of the success of the test.   

He said it believes the North carried out its test, announced on Monday, to increase its bargaining power in negotiations with Washington over its nuclear ambitions.   

In Washington the White House said it may not know for "a couple of days" whether North Korea truly tested a nuclear device. But it said it would press for UN Security Council punishment regardless.