Seoul, South Korea ? South Korea’s top defense official said Thursday that his country was prepared for war in the event that diplomacy failed to defuse an intensifying nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula.

“If the North Korean nuclear problem cannot be solved peacefully and America attacks North Korea, war on the Korean peninsula will be unavoidable,” Defense Minister Lee Jun told parliament. “Our army is prepared for the worst-case scenario.”

Jun added that if North Korea followed through on reviving its once-mothballed nuclear reactor and did build nuclear weapons, they would likely be targeted at South Korea. Those comments served to underscore that, despite South Korea’s current “sunshine policy” of reconciliation and engagement, the North remains an enemy in a conflict that never officially ended after the Korean War of 1950-53.

South Korea’s comments on the possibility of war came as a top Bush administration envoy now touring Asian capitals in a diplomatic push to pressure North Korea back from the nuclear brink warned that the campaign could be slow in producing the desired result.

“We’re going to have to talk and work together and communicate with other people including with North Korea very, very clearly,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly shortly before departing Beijing for Singapore.