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NORTH KOREA THIS WEEK NO. 461 (August 9, 2007)
*** NEWS IN BRIEF (Part 2)
North Korea warns against South Korea-U.S. military exercise
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea on August 3 denounced a planned joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States, calling it an "intolerable act of provocation," the North's official media reported.
The communist country, which shut down its main nuclear reactor as the first major step toward its nuclear dismantlement, also warned that the annual military exercise will likely be a hurdle to a landmark nuclear disarmament deal signed in February, according to the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
South Korea and the U.S. should take responsibility for "creating an artificial hurdle" to disarmament talks and improved inter-Korean relations, said the Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, a state organization handling inter-Korean relations.
South Korea and the U.S. are to hold the joint military exercise Ulchi Focus Lens (UFL) on Aug. 20-31 this year.
North Korea usually denounces the annual exercise, which began in 1975, calling it preparation for a preemptive strike against the communist regime. The exercise is the world's largest computerized command and control exercise to foster the allies' joint defense capability against a possible North Korean attack.
"Ulchi Focus Lens 2007 is a simulation-driven, command-post exercise that will involve both United States and Republic of Korea forces who are currently stationed in the South. A small number of U.S. personnel will also travel to Korea to participate," the U.S. Forces Korea said in a press release.
About 10,000 American troops will join in the exercise, with about half of them to come from outside of Korea, while some 500 key players among the troops from outside Korea will actually be deployed in the South.
The UFL is one of the two main annual joint military drills of the allies, along with the Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, Integration (RSOI) exercise.
The UFL will be renamed "Ulchi-Freedom Guardian" starting next year, and the RSOI is to be called "Key Resolve" in tandem with Seoul's move to retake wartime control of its troops from Washington as of April 17, 2012.
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Foreign Minister Pak raps Japan, warns of obstacle in 6-way nuclear talks
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun has warned there will be serious obstacles in international talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambition unless Tokyo stops its crackdown on a pro-Pyongyang organization in Japan, the North's state media reported on Aug. 5.
Attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF), which opened in Manila on Aug. 2, Pak said in a speech that Japan's suppression of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, better known as Chongryon, is a "grave provocation" against the North and an act that infringes on its sovereignty, the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
"If Japan continues its crackdown on Chongryon, the DPRK (North Korea) cannot but warn Japan that it will bring about a more serious political crisis than the financial sanctions," Pak was quoted as saying.
The KCNA report said Pak also reaffirmed his country's commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula in his speech, calling it a "behest" of the North's late founder and president Kim Il-sung.
However, he said the issue also hinges on the end of what Pyongyang calls a "hostile" U.S. policy toward the communist regime and the removal of a U.S. "nuclear threat" against the North, according to the report.
In the February agreement signed in Beijing, the North has to completely disable the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and declare all its nuclear programs in exchange for energy assistance and political benefits, which include the beginning of talks to normalize relations with the U.S. and Japan.
Pyongyang held separate normalization talks with Washington and Tokyo in March, but the talks with Japan have stalled amid a dispute over Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago.
North Korea has repatriated five of the 13 Japanese citizens it admitted kidnapping in the 1970s and 1980s, but says the rest are dead. Tokyo believes more were kidnapped and are still held there.
Foreign Minister Pak went to the Philippines on July 29 to attend the ARF, Asia's largest security forum.
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Swedish special envoy visits Pyongyang
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- As a reconciliatory mood grew in the international community with progress towards North Korea's denuclearization, a Swedish special envoy visited Pyongyang.
The (North) Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 7 said Hans Dalgren, special envoy of the government of Sweden, and his party arrived in Pyongyang during the day, without giving any more details.
Dalgren is state secretary to the minister for foreign affairs in the North European country, and his areas of responsibility are foreign and security policy, human rights and assistance to Swedes abroad.
Ironically, he presided over the sanctions against the North in his capacity last year as chairman of the United Nations Security Council when the communist state tested ballistic missiles, disregarding warnings from the U.S. and other countries.
Sweden, as the country that awards the Nobel peace prize each year, has been interested in improving relations with the reclusive country.
Kent Harstedt, a political advisor to Sweden's prime minister, visited Pyongyang in early December 2005, seemingly trying to repair chilly relations between North Korea and the European Union after the passage of a EU-backed U.N. resolution on its human rights violations.
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson visited North Korea in May 2001, when Sweden held the EU's rotating presidency, and met the reclusive country's leader Kim Jong-il.
(END)
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