75% of South Korean citizens are deeply concerned by the existence of North Korea’s nuclear programs, according to a new survey of public opinion.

The South Korean government conducted the survey, including both those aged 19 and over, and middle and high school students.

According to the results, “75% of adults and 68.7% of young people are concerned that ‘North Korea is becoming a serious threat to our national security’.”

Conversely, 21.9% of adults and 30% of young people said that either it is nothing to do with South Korea, or that in the future it will become South Korea’s technology so is not a cause for concern.

Elsewhere 56.4% of adults and 52.7% of young people said that the risk of a provocative North Korean attack on South Korea has been growing of late, considerably less than the 76.1% and 78.7% recorded in the same survey last year.

In the advent of an armed provocation, the vast majority of respondents (80.5% of adults and 68.9% of young people) want to see either the full mobilization of the South Korean military, or a response in direct correlation to the scale of the attack itself. Very few, just 17.1% of adults and 29.7% of young people, think South Korea should restrain itself totally.