| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Korea | |
| US flirting with nuclear war, says N Korea | |
| 2003-03-15 | |
| A US aircraft carrier and stealth bombers prepared Saturday to join major war games with South Korea, while North Korea warned that the amassing of US military might around the Korean Peninsula increases the danger of nuclear war. Pyongyang has vehemently objected to the annual Foal Eagle military exercises by US and South Korean forces that began early this month amid a standoff over the communist North's nuclear programs. Washington says it seeks a peaceful solution to the nuclear dispute. But Pyongyang accuses the United States of using the exercises as a pretext for dispatching its modern weaponry to the peninsula and rehearsing for invasion. "The US can attack the DPRK any moment," said Pyongyang's main state-run daily Rodong Sinmun on Saturday. "The US seeks to round off its preparations for a nuclear war against the DPRK at its final phase and mount a pre-emptive nuclear attack on it any time," it added. In recent weeks, North Korea has escalated tensions by test-firing two short-range missiles and intercepting a US reconnaissance plane off the country's east coast. Meanwhile, in Berkeley, California, North Korea's UN ambassador met with officials from South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and the European Union for talks aimed at allaying tensions on the Korean peninsula. However, no one was appearing as an official representative of a country. "We are having a very lively discussion," said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a University of Tokyo professor and co-chair of the conference.
In Seoul, the South Korean Defence Ministry vowed to "strengthen the military alliance with the United States, based on mutual trust and cooperation, and pursue the joint goal of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula." So we have no friends in the world. Well, as Lord Palmerston said: "We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are perpetual and eternal and these interests it is our duty to follow (Speech on the Polish Question in the House of Commons [1848]) The ministry has often made the statement in the past and it did not immediately appear that Saturday's comments, delivered in an annual policy report to the country's president, would lead to specific action. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson anchored off the southern city of Busan on Friday, and US officials said they would take a group of journalists on a tour of the ship later Saturday. The US military on Friday displayed one of the six F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters it has brought to South Korea for the military exercise dubbed Foal Eagle. "One of the valuable parts of these exercises is we get experience flying in South Korean airspace," Lt. Col. Jay Lake said at Kunsan Air Base south of Seoul. "Our mission is going against big, valuable, heavily defended targets." The Japanese government, meanwhile, has said it is considering strengthening its missile defenses amid reports that North Korea is preparing to test a medium-range missile capable of reaching Japan. The Tokyo announcement came a day after Japan's Defence Agency said it had deployed an Aegis-equipped destroyer - which includes top-of-the-line surveillance systems and ship-to-air missiles - in the waters between Japan and North Korea. Japan's Kyodo news agency reported Friday that the government was considering sending two more Aegis-equipped destroyers to the Sea of Japan in response to the possible threat. But Defence Agency spokesman Manabu Shimamoto said the agency "has no plans to fortify its presence in the Sea of Japan right now." South Korea's military Saturday said it did not believe North Korea was preparing to test-fire its ballistic missiles. | |
| Posted by:George H. Beckwith |
| #1 I guarantee NK is surprised at how this is progressing. They'd planned on Bush, Runny, et al acting like bill, Madeline, Jimmy C....and that hasn't happened. Meanwhile their circumstances are not getting better by any means |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-03-15 19:03:45 |