South Korea should try to persuade the United States not to take military action against North Korea because it would to lead to full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula, a ruling party lawmaker said Wednesday.

Rep. Woo Sang-ho, a former floor leader of the ruling Democratic Party, also said in a radio interview that military tensions on the peninsula are at the highest-level since the Korean War and the recent US flying of US B-1B Lancer bombers near the North fueled the tensions.
 

"We have to stop the US from exercising military options because that would open up the possibility of a full-scale war," Woo said. "Should the US launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, it would spark a full-scale war between the South and the North."

Such a war may not affect the continental US, but it would devastate the peninsula, he said.

"Political leaders in the South should ask the US with one voice that military options should never be considered," he said.

The already heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the North's sixth nuclear test have risen further since last week as US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un traded bellicose rhetoric.

Trump warned in his inaugural address to the UN General Assembly that he will "totally destroy" the North if necessary. Kim struck back, issuing a rare personal statement and warning he will consider taking the "highest level of hard-line countermeasures in history."

On Saturday, the US flew B-1B Lancer bombers over international waters just off the North's east coast in a show of force. The North's foreign minister called Trump's warning as a declaration of war and said the North has the right to shoot down US planes off its coast. (Yonhap)