- SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S
air force said on Wednesday "Stealth" warplanes will arrive in
South Korea this week for annual military drills which North Korea says
are evidence of sinister U.S. plans for nuclear war.
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- The first deployment of the sleek, radar-eluding F-117A
jets to South Korea in a decade was described as routine, but it follows
a spate of provocative North Korean moves that have vied with Iraq for
U.S. attention and hurt the South's economy.
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- With months of North Korean nuclear brinkmanship starting
to erode confidence in South Korea's economy, Seoul said top officials
met international ratings agencies earlier this week to try to stave off
a potential sovereign rating downgrade.
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- North Korea's decision to restart a nuclear reactor and
buzz a U.S. spy plane were "worrisome" events that added urgency
to the need for an effective approach to the crisis over North Korea's
nuclear ambitions, the U.S. envoy to South Korea said.
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- Ambassador Thomas Hubbard said in a speech to the American
Chamber of Commerce the North Korean leadership was misguided.
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- "Recent events such as the restart of the Yongbyon
nuclear reactor and the interception of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft
patrolling international airspace by North Korea lend even greater urgency
to finding an effective approach to dealing with the North's worrisome
behavior," he said.
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- "SINISTER MILITARY PURPOSE"
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- North Korea said the U.S.-South Korean war games -- which
the Stealth planes were to join -- would make the "Korean peninsula
so tense that a nuclear war may break out any moment."
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- A U.S. air force spokeswoman told Reuters the Stealth
aircraft would arrive in the South by the end of this week.
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- "The U.S. claims that the exercises are annual events
which have nothing to do with the nuclear issue of the DPRK (North Korea).
But this is nothing but a broad hoax to mislead the public opinion and
cover up its sinister military purpose," said the North's official
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
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- Hubbard said North Korea had been carrying out various
activities in recent months consistent with restarting a reprocessing plant
near the Yongbyon reactor north of Pyongyang.
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- But he could not confirm whether the plant had been reactivated
-- a move that would allow the North to produce enough material for a nuclear
bomb each month by mid-year, by which time the United States could be at
war with Iraq.
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- KCNA said the military drills in the South this month
and next showed Washington was "watching for a chance to mount a pre-emptive
attack on the nuclear facilities in the DPRK."
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- ROH EYES U.S. VISIT
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- As Pyongyang's brinkmanship continued, the Washington
Times, citing U.S. intelligence officials, said satellite photographs suggested
North Korea was preparing to conduct what would be its third missile test
in recent weeks.
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- The newspaper said North Korea was expected to give advance
warning to shipping as early as Wednesday.
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- North Korea launched a surface-to-ship missile toward
the Sea of Japan on Monday after firing a similar missile to the same area
on February 25, U.S. and South Korean officials said.
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- Hubbard said the planned deployment of the Stealth fighters
to South Korea had "no relationship to the intercept of our RC-135
(reconnaissance aircraft)." The United States protested to North Korea
on Monday about the March 2 near-miss.
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- Washington favored multilateral talks on the standoff
because the North's actions challenged global security, he said.
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- "North Korea represents a clear proliferation threat,
not only because of its own development of weapons of mass destruction,
but also because of the possibility that it could sell or give such weapons
to terrorist states or terrorist enemies of the international community,"
the ambassador said.
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- South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan told KBS
state radio on Wednesday that Seoul preferred multilateral diplomacy as
advocated by Washington, but that U.S.-North talks within that context
would be necessary to break the deadlock.
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- Yoon said he would travel to the United States later
this month to help arrange President Roh Moo-hyun's summit with President
Bush, expected to take place in April or May.
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- Roh's two-week-old government has been buffeted by the
nuclear crisis and faces strained ties with Washington, which has talked
of trimming or redeploying the 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea
under a 50-year-old security treaty.
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