South Korea's Defense Ministry began the new year on Thursday without issuing its traditional New Year's message, which in recent years had strongly warned North Korea against provocations.
The ministry's change came amid growing controversy surrounding allegations that several former and current military officials played key roles in President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched martial law imposition on Dec. 3. Acting Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho has been at the helm of the ministry since early December, after the resignation of Kim Yong-hyun, who currently faces charges of insurrection and abuse of power over his role in the martial law imposition.
With Pyongyang's advancing nuclear weapons program coupled with its multiple launches of trash balloons across the border to the South throughout last year, the ministry was widely expected to release a clear warning against the North in its New Year's message.
Last year, former Defense Minister and current National Security Office chief Shin Won-shik warned that the North will be forced to realize that provocations and threats against the South will serve as "a prelude to its own destruction" in his New Year's message.
"We must make North Korea feel in their bones that reckless provocative behavior threatening the Republic of Korea will soon become a prelude to destruction," Shin said, referring to South Korea by its official name.
Calling North Korea an enemy state, Shin highlighted the need to "completely crush their willingness and capabilities for additional provocations by punishing them immediately, strongly and until the end," if it undertakes provocations.
The remark came after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un labeled inter-Korean relations as "two states hostile to each other" and ordered that preparations to "suppress" the entire territory of the South be stepped up.
Instead of releasing a New Year's message, acting Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho visited the Seoul National Cemetery on Wednesday morning, among other officials in the government and from the presidential office to pay tribute to the patriots buried there. Later the same day, he visited the 2nd Marine Division based in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, to inspect troop readiness against North Korean threats.
Meanwhile, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Adm. Kim Myung-soo on Wednesday called for the military's "seamless operational posture" to "deter" North Korea's possible threats in his phone calls with commanding officers at key operational units, according to the JCS. The key units included the general outpost battalion commander at the Army's 25th Infantry Division and the commanding officer of the Yeonpyeongdo unit that oversees the western border islands.
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