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North
Korea accuses US of preparing attack, threatens to abandon accord Sun
Apr 25, 3:46 AM ET SEOUL
(AFP) - North Korea's army accused the United States of preparing to attack and
warned it could abandon a 50-year-old accord that ended the Korean war. The
accusation came after South Korea said 12 days ago that the United States agreed
to withdraw a large portion of its troops guarding the truce village of
Panmunjom in the four-kilometer-wide (2.4 mile) buffer zone by October. Panmunjom
and its adjacent joint security area (JSA) have been guarded by North Korean
soldiers and US troops since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice
accord. South
Korean officials said the US troop cut in Panmunjom was designed to give South
Korea more control over the defense of its border with North Korea. But
a North Korean People's Army (KPA) spokesman said the US troop withdrawal showed
it was giving up its duty as a signatory to the armistice accord (AA). At
the same time, "The US is massively shipping ultra-modern arms and
equipment into South Korea and staging war exercises against the DPRK one after
another...," the official said in a statement carried by the official
Korean Central News Agency. "The
US decision to take even its small force out of the JSA in Panmunjom and DMZ
(demilitarized zone) against this backdrop indicates that the US preparations
for a preemptive attack upon the DPRK (North Korea) are under way at a final
phase," he said. "This
situation prompts the KPA side not to allow such a thing ... and compels it to
take whatever strong measure to protect its own security," he said. North
Korea will "comprehensively examine the issue of security" in
Panmunjom and "all the provisions" of the accord, he said. The
spokesman said the United States should not forget it was technically at war
with North Korea and "in an unstable state of armistice as they have not
yet settled the belligerent relationship." US
and North Korean officers have maintained unofficial contact in the truce
village to prevent accidental conflicts on the inter-Korean border. North Korea
has insisted it would talk only with the United States on security matters
related to the 1953 armistice accord. |