North Korea Vows Arms Build-Up to Cope with U.S.

[Brooke Rowe <global-national-security@pacbell.net>]

North Korea Vows Arms Build-Up to Cope with U.S.

(EXCERPT) SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) warned the
United States on Tuesday it would build up its military to counter
what it said was U.S. ``strong-arm policy'' against the communist
state.

``The U.S. escalated policy intended to stifle the DPRK compels the
DPRK to increase its military capabilities for self-defense to cope
with it,'' the ruling party daily Rodong Sinmun said in a statement.

``The Bush government is still pursuing the hardline policy to contain
the DPRK though it calls for the 'resumption of dialogue without any
precondition','' said the commentary, carried on North's Korea Central
News Agency (KCNA).

DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name -- the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea.

The statement said the United States was using its anti-terrorism
campaign as an excuse to boost its forces in South Korea (news - web
sites), creating a ``war atmosphere.''

U.S. officials have said that troops and weapons shifted from South
Korea to Afghanistan (news - web sites) have been replenished. Many of
the curfews imposed on the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea after the
September 11 aerial attacks have been eased.

The latest verbal attack on the Bush administration followed North
Korea's angry rejection last week of U.S. calls for inspections to
hunt for suspected weapons of mass destruction, including biological
and chemical arms.

North Korea frequently uses bluster, threats and bluffs as a
diplomatic tool to extract concessions from South Korea or get the
attention of the South's ally, the United States, analysts say.

MIXED SIGNALS FROM NORTH

Experts said it was unlikely impoverished North Korea, which spends a
quarter of its gross domestic product on its huge forward-deployed
military, would further boost military readiness.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung (news - web sites) told British
business leaders in London on Monday that ``the security risk that has
long been an obstacle to inducing foreign capital has diminished to a
minimum'' as a result of his policies of engaging North Korea.

North-South ties are at a standstill, despite an unprecedented series
of exchanges in 2000 which raised hopes of reconciliation. The two
Koreas remain technically at war because they failed to sign a peace
treaty at the end of the 1950-53 Korean conflict.

Despite its penchant for hostile rhetoric against the United States,
South Korea and Japan, North Korea has also sent some positive signals
to those countries in recent days.

On Monday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry thanked the international
community for food aid that has helped it cope with grave food
shortages since 1995.

Earlier that day, North Korea signed agreements with the Korean
peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), on the quality
guarantees of two nuclear reactors which Western countries agreed to
build for the communist North.

KEDO is a consortium set up to implement the $4.6 billion reactor
project under the 1994 Agreed Framework deal, which froze the North's
suspected nuclear weapons program and obliges North Korea to open its
atomic facilities to international inspection. 

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011204/ts/arms_korea_usa_dc_1.html


---------------------------
   Brooke Rowe
   Associate Librarian
   The American War Library
   http://www.americanwarlibrary.com