The U.S. military chief in South Korea said
Friday he was concerned about further North Korean provocations over the next several years and urged regional powers to put pressure on the North to stop such threats.
"The thing that I am worried about is that provocations from North Korea would be escalating very quickly," Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, told an audience at a security seminar in Seoul.
"Kim Jong-il has said North Korea will be a great and powerful nation by 2012," Sharp said, referring to Pyongyang's top leader, adding that he believes the only way for Kim to "get to that point is through military provocations and threatening neighbors."
The general, who leads the 28,500-strong American troops stationed in
South Korea, said he sees "more and more provocations between now and 2012."
Regional powers should be prepared to convince North Korea not to attempt such provocations, Sharp said, calling now the time "we really need to do that."
As demonstrated by the North's deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March, future provocations from the North would be carried out
with its unconventional armed capabilities, said Sharp.
Some North Korea watchers say the naval attack indicates instability of the Pyongyang regime that appears to be in the process of transferring power from ailing leader Kim Jong-il to his youngest son, Jong-un. The senior Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008.
The North's father-to-son power transfer is widely expected to take place in 2012, according to the experts, the year the country has vowed to turn itself into a "great, powerful and prosperous nation." The year marks the centenary of the birth of the nation's founder and Kim Jong-il's father, Kim Il-sung.
Sharp's comments came as the North has been stepping up its rhetoric against South Korea and the U.S. over diplomatic efforts to rebuke Pyongyang at the U.N. Security Council for the March 26 attack on the Cheonan that killed 46 sailors.
North Korea has repeatedly denied its responsibility for the attack, threatening that any punishment attempts against the nation would trigger war.