World War 3: South Korea considers constructing nuclear reactors amid North Korea fears

The committee will go ahead with the recommendation after it issued sourcebooks outlining the pros and cons of the issue to citizen jurors in an attempt to gather public opinions.

The recommendation by the committee to the South Korean government will be made in late October, it has been reported.

News of the upcoming recommendation has come as Kim Jong-un’s regime earlier this week warned its enemies that there is “no place safe on Earth” from the hermit kingdom’s nuclear arsenal.

Earlier this week it was also revealed that South Korea will double the number of troops and set up crack cyber-defence and anti-terror teams in a bid to increase security as tensions with North Korea continue to escalate.

The South Korean Defence Ministry said it plans to deploy 5,000 armed forces personnel at the 2018 Winter Games – double the 2,400 on duty during the 2002 World Cup which the country co-hosted with Japan.

Next February’s international event takes place just 50miles from the heavily fortified border with its volatile, nuclear-armed neighbour.

POCOG, the organising committee for the event in the mountainous resort town of Pyeongchang, will select a private cyber security company to guard against hacking from North Korea.

The committee wants to fast-track the process as tensions rise in the wake of South Korea’s controversial deployment of the US THAAD anti-missile system and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un unprecedented series of weapons tests.

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for a series of hacking attempts in the last few years, including a 2013 cyberattack against banks and broadcasters that froze computer systems for more than a week.

North Korea’s nervous neighbour has also created a new Special Weapons and Tactics team to guard against terrorism around the Games, Asia’s first Winter Olympics outside Japan.

Jin Jeong-hyeon, a police inspector from the SWAT team, said: “We will search Olympic venues to check for bombs, protect athletes and visitors, and guard against any attempts to assassinate key figures.”

Some observers view Pyongyang’s threats as bluster but North Korea has previous form in this area.

In June 2002, as South Korea prepared to play Turkey in the play-off for third place at the World Cup, North Korean patrol boats crossed the disputed maritime border and exchanged fire with South Korean vessels, killing six South Korean sailors.

In November 1987, nine months before Seoul was set to host the Summer Games, North Korean agents detonated a bomb on Korean Air Flight 858, killing all 104 passengers and 11 crew.

One of the agents later told investigators the order had come from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and one of the aims had been to frighten international athletes and visitors from attending the Seoul Olympics.

South Korea’s sports minister Do Jong-whan has said Seoul was “very concerned about aggressive remarks” traded between Pyongyang and Washington but did not believe Kim would risk a war against countries participating at the Olympics.