N. Koreans say U.S. policy is forcing
them to boost their military might
By Jim Lea, Stars and Stripes
The Bush administration’s “hostile policy” toward
North Korea is hurting relationships on the peninsula, and the North has no choice but to
increase its military power, North Korea told the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Regional Forum in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Wednesday.
South Korean news reports from the Vietnamese capital said the
comment was included in a security outlook presented to the forum by the North Korean
delegation.
The report said a U.S. attempt “to destroy the socialist system
of North Korea” is creating “dark clouds of war.”
It also said the Bush administration’s policy toward the North
is jeopardizing U.S.-North Korea relations.
The security report said no nuclear or missile threat from the North
exists.
It added that test firing of missiles and nuclear experiments
“are a nation’s sovereign right and no country has the right to interfere with
them.”
Pentagon officials said the situation on the Korean Peninsula was
bordering on war in 1994 because North Korea announced it was withdrawing from the Nuclear
Non-proliferation Treaty and ordered International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors out of
the country.
The U.N.-affiliated agency conducts inspections to ensure nations
that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty are abiding by the pact.
In early 1994, atomic energy agency inspectors said what North Korea
called a “radiation laboratory” appeared to be a facility used to reprocess
spent uranium into weapons grade plutonium.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter persuaded North Korea’s
leader, Kim Il Sung, to shelve his withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty.
He also brokered a summit between Kim and then-South Korean President
Kim Young-sam. The summit was not held because Kim Il Sung died in July 1994.
But Kim’s son and successor, Kim Jong Il, agreed to a meeting
with U.S. officials in Geneva and agreed that the North would freeze its old nuclear
program in return for two nuclear power plants.
North Korea joined the ASEAN Regional Forum last year, and this was
the first time it submitted a security report to the conference.
Both U.S. and South Korean officials hoped to meet with the North
Korean delegation during the Regional Forum meeting in Hanoi.
South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Han Seung-soo met
informally with North Korean chief delegate, Ambassador-at-Large Ho Jong, on Wednesday, a
ministry spokesman said.
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