The US decision to cut and relocate its troop contingent in South Korea while bringing in high-tech armaments is a madcap ploy that shows a second Korean War is imminent, North Korea said on Friday.
| 'Madcap'? Looks like the first team is writing for KCNA! |
The United States and South Korea signed a landmark deal on Tuesday under which a base in Seoul will be vacated and other camps relocated. Washington will also withdraw 12,500 troops by 2008 and move units south away from the fortified Demilitarised Zone border with the North. General Leon LaPorte, commander of US Forces in Korea, said the key was to ensure North Korea did not misunderstand the US plan, which is part of a global realignment of its forces. North Korea has long argued all US forces should withdraw but has taken a different line now that some are actually pulling out.
"The US madcap arms build-up of an unprecedented scale now under way in South Korea under the pretext of the cut down of its troops and their relocation is a dangerous military action," said the North's main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun. "The second Korean War which would bring a nuclear holocaust to the Korean nation is neither hypothesis nor a far-off event but imminent," the communist daily said in a commentary published by the official KCNA news agency in English. North Korea often uses goofy inflammatory rhetoric to criticise the United States.
LaPorte told the seminar new weaponry and faster mobilisation from overseas bases would easily offset the withdrawal of a third of the 37,500 troops under his command. "I would not support any efforts or any programmes that put the security of South Korea in jeopardy," he said. "The key question is to ensure North Korea does not miscalculate and perceive a weakness or a vulnerability first of all in the US presence and commitment in Northeast Asia and also a split in the ROK-US alliance," the general said. "We are working on that very hard." He said the military rationale behind the changes was sound but it needed to be explained clearly to the South Korean public. South Korea's parliament has to ratify the US troop agreement by the end of the year. It is expected to do so because the ruling Uri Party has a majority.  |