North Korea's Threat to South Korea

North Korea issued a threat to South Korea saying that it would not guarantee the safety of civilian aircraft flying in its airspace for the South. The North did this as a part of its annual disagreement with a large military exercise that is conducted in the area between South Korea and the United States. Tensions have been running high of late between the two Koreas and this is out of the ordinary and more excessive than statements of the past arguing the exercise. North Korea should realize that threatening civilians is no way to conduct healthy foreign relations and will only diminish its standing in the area of world opinion. South Korea has had to divert over 200 flights over the next two weeks to avoid a crisis situation. North Korea should immediately retract this threat and apologize for using civilian lives as a bargaining chip in its foreign policy matters.