S. Korean acting president vows to strengthen defense capability, cooperation with neighbors

South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-han, who serves as the acting president, said on Monday that his country will strengthen defense capability and cooperation with the international community this year.

Hwang said in a speech for the New Year kick-off meeting that South Korea will strengthen security capability and cooperate with the international society to deal with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear threats.

His speech came a day after top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un said in his New Year address that Pyongyang entered a final stage in preparations for the test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic rocket.

The acting South Korean president said that he will make efforts to fill up any vacuum in diplomacy and expand cooperation with the United States, Japan, China and Russia and other countries in the world.

Tensions remained heightened on the Korean Peninsula as the DPRK conducted its fifth nuclear test in September last year. The country detonated its fourth atomic device in January 2016.

Expectations are running high for the DPRK's another launch of its long-range rocket in consideration of its recent successful ejection test on the ground of a rocket engine to carry a new type of stationary satellite.

South Korean experts predicted the test-launch as early as this month before the new U.S. administration is launched on Jan. 20.

Hwang is serving as a caretaker president after President Park Geun-hye was impeached in the parliament on Dec. 9. If Park is permanently removed from office as early as late February, a presidential election must be held within 60 days. Endit