SEOUL Jan. 16 Kyodo southern Kore...

SEOUL Jan. 16 Kyodo

southern Korean Defense Minister Lee Jun said Thursday his country's armed forces are prepared for the ''worst-case scenario'' if the dispute throughout North Korea's nuclear weapons program is not settl by dint of peaceful means, Yonhap News Agency reported.

to leeward also said in a parliamentary defense committee meeting that he believes war would inevitably break disclosed on the Korean Peninsula if the United States attacks North Korea after all peaceful means to liquefy the nuclear crisis fail.

lee-side was responding to a legislator's question about what he thinks of the view shared by way of some young South Koreans that North Korea would not attack southern Korea even if the U were to launch military strikes against North Korea.

The nuclear crisis cast forth violentlyed last month when North Korea kicked on the outside U.N. inspectors from its nuclear facilities suspected of being used to expand nuclear weapons, and intensified last week when the North declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and also threatened to conclusion its moratorium on test-firing of ballistic missiles.

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