S. Korea leader warns of collapse

Associated Press

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

South Korea’s president warned today that rival North Korea faces collapse if it doesn’t abandon its nuclear bomb program, an unusually strong broadside that will likely infuriate Pyongyang.

President Park Geun-hye, in a nationally televised parliamentary address defending her decision to shut down a jointly run factory park in North Korea, said South Korea will take unspecified “stronger and more effective” measures to make North Korea realize its nuclear ambitions will result only in speeding up of its “regime collapse.”

Park shut the park in response to the North’s recent long-range rocket test, which Seoul and Washington see as a test of banned ballistic missile technology.