“N.Korea Can’t Protect Foreign Embassies after April 10”

Saturday, 6 April 2013

“N.Korea Can’t Protect Foreign Embassies after April 10”

North Korea: long range missile (Archive)

North Korea asked foreign embassies to consider evacuation amid growing tension, warning it will be ‘unable to guarantee’ their safety after April 10. Moscow said it is examining the request, but is not planning to evacuate diplomats anytime soon.

The Foreign Ministry of North Korea on Friday has “proposed that the Russian side consider the issue of evacuating the embassy staff in connection with the increasingly tense situation on the Korean Peninsula,” the spokesman of the Russian Embassy to the DPRK Denis Samsonov told RT news website.

The Russian side “is examining the suggestion,” but the embassy is working normally and there’s no sign of tension in Pyongyang, Samsonov said.

The notification was sent to all foreign embassies and diplomatic missions in Pyongyang, and, according to Xinhua news agency, explained the deteriorating situation by “the increasing threat from the United States.”

“The current question was not whether, but when a war would break out on the peninsula,” Xinhua cited the North Korean document.

The British Embassy in Pyongyang has received a communication saying that the North Korean government “would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10,” according to a UK Foreign Office spokesman.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday called for all sides to refrain from “war hysteria,” and stressed there’s “no alternative other than political and diplomatic solution” for the Korean crisis.
South Korean media said that North Korea moved another medium-range missile to its east coast on Friday. Earlier this week, the US announced it was strengthening missile defense system to its base on the Pacific Ocean island of Guam in response to the North Korean missile deployment.

Nevertheless, the South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin called the possibility of a full-scale provocation from Pyongyang “small” and the threats “rhetorical.”