South Korea will strike back quickly if the North stages any attack on its territory, the new president in Seoul warned on Monday, as tensions ratcheted higher on the Korean peninsula amid shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang and the U.S. deployment of radar-evading fighter planes, according to reuters. North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of United Nations sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test and a series of joint U.S. and South Korean military drills that have included a rare U.S. show of aerial power. "If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," President Park Geun-hye told the defence minister and senior officials at a meeting on Monday. The South has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.
