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SEOUL: North Korea said Thursday it was “fully ready” for war
with South Korea, stepping up its rhetoric just hours before US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to arrive in Seoul.
“The Lee Myung Bak group of traitors should
never forget that the Korean People’s Army is fully ready for an
all-out confrontation,” a spokesman for the Army General Staff
said.
The statement to the North’s official Korean
Central News Agency (KCNA) was the latest in a series of
increasingly strident threats against President Lee’s conservative
government, which have raised cross-border tensions.
South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang Hee has
said a limited naval clash may break out around the two countries’
disputed border in the Yellow Sea.
Lee and other officials also say the North is
preparing to test its longest-range missile, which could
theoretically reach Alaska. Minister Lee said Wednesday it could be
ready for launch within two or three weeks.
Clinton, who is scheduled to arrive at 10:45
p.m. (1:45 a.m. Manila time), has said any missile test would be
“very unhelpful” for US-North Korean relations and has urged
Pyongyang to drop its harsh rhetoric.
Last month the North announced it is scrapping
all peace accords with the South including a 1991 pact that
recognized the sea border as an interim frontier.
The border was the scene of deadly naval clashes
in 1999 and 2002.
Seoul’s unification ministry, which handles
cross-border relations, said the 1991 pact should be respected. It
urged the North to halt its “denunciations and provocative
behaviour” and accept an offer of dialogue.
In a separate dispatch, KNCA blasted plans for a
regular joint exercise by South Korean and US forces, saying they
would pay a “high price” for conducting what it described as war
preparations.
The warning came a day after the US-South Korean
combined forces command announced that the annual “Key
Resolve/Foal Eagle” drill would take place from March 9 to 20
across the peninsula.
“The war preparations by the US and South
Korean authorities that bring the fiery winds of war to the Korean
peninsula will exact a high price as they are against peace and the
times,” it said.
The command has told North Korea the exercise is
purely defensive. It will involve a US aircraft carrier, 26,000 US
troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops.
President Lee has angered Pyongyang by
abandoning his predecessors’ policy of engagement and virtually
unconditional aid to the North.
He says major economic aid should be linked to
denuc-learization and pledges to review summit pacts reached between
Pyongyang and his predecessors.
-- AFP
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