By KUNA,
Tokyo : South Korea on Tuesday announced an overhaul of its crisis management system in response to North Korea’s perennial military threats and provocations, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The presidential office plans to enhance the status of the national crisis management center and expand its role to oversee the handling of a national security crisis, according to the report.
The decision came at a meeting of the National Security Council chaired by President Lee Myung-bak.
South Korea’s national security system has come under public scrutiny following the North’s deadly artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last month and its torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March.
The National Security Council is the president’s principal forum for consulting national security and major foreign policy matters with his senior staff and Cabinet officials.
The South’s military pressed ahead with a live-fire artillery exercise Monday from the Yellow Sea border island of Yeonpyeong, which was shelled by the North on November 23.
The exercise defied Pyongyang’s threats of a military response. The North refrained from immediate retaliation, saying through its military command late Monday that it “did not feel any need to retaliate against every despicable military provocation.”