North Korea is threatening to use terrorism against the South, Seoul’s intelligence agency said in a rare public advisory on Monday, and warned South Korean citizens in China and Southeast Asia to be on their guard.
The attacks may be in retaliation for the recent airlift of a large group of North Korean refugees, the National Intelligence Service said.
South Korea secretly organized the airlift of more than 460 North Korean refugees last month from a country that activists said was Vietnam.
“North Korea is threatening our country with terrorism in retaliation,” the spy agency said in its statement.
Seoul’s warning follows a barrage of verbal attacks by the North accusing the South of premeditated abduction and terrorism against its people.
South Korea denied the accusation, saying it was a humanitarian act and that Seoul was bound by law to accept any North Korean seeking asylum.
“We are advising heightened vigilance in view of the refugees’ arrival and the North’s reaction to it,” a spokesman at the agency said by telephone.
South Korea blames the North for a bombing in Myanmar in 1983 that killed 17 South Koreans including senior cabinet officers and the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air flight off the coast of Myanmar with 115 passengers and crew members on board.
The spokesman said the warning was not based on specific indications of foreseen attacks against South Koreans but was prompted by the level of the North’s threat made publicly.
North Korea’s state media have increased rhetorical attacks against South Korean authorities in recent weeks to match its regular dose of condemnation of the United States.
The South Korean government was instigating confrontation with the North and anyone who supported the plan “will have to pay a high price” North Korea said following the arrival of the refugees in the South.
On Sunday, North Korea said South Korean authorities would be held responsible for “grave consequences” for trying to undermine ties between the two Koreas.
Relations between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war under a truce, had been warming since a summit four years ago but have been marred by incidents that led to months of cooling.
Pyongyang boycotted a planned round of high-level talks with Seoul earlier this month in an apparent display of anger over the South’s refugee operation.