- SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea
vowed on Saturday to resist all international demands on the communist
state to allow nuclear inspections or agree to disarm, saying Iraq had
made this mistake and was now paying the price.
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- "The DPRK would have already met the same miserable
fate as Iraq's had it compromised its revolutionary principle and accepted
the demand raised by the imperialists and its followers for "nuclear
inspection" and disarmament," the ruling party daily Rodong Sinmun
said in a commentary.
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- DPRK is an acronym for the state's official name, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
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- Pyongyang's latest comments came as U.S. commanders running
the invasion of Iraq ordered a pause in a northward push toward Baghdad
due to stiff resistance and short supplies. On the divided Korean peninsula,
meanwhile, American and South Korean forces allied against the North conducted
field exercises involving mock battles and amphibious landings.
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- "The DPRK will increase its self-defensive capability
and fully demonstrate its might under the uplifted banner of the army-based
policy," Rodong Sinmun said.
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- A spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry declined
immediate comment.
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- NO ATTACK
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- North Korea shocked the region five years ago when it
fired a long-range ballistic missile over Japan, historically a foe of
Korea. The North is currently deadlocked with the United States over Pyongyang's
suspected nuclear weapons program.
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- Earlier on Saturday, South Korea's unification minister
sought to calm frayed nerves on the peninsula by assuring a parliamentary
committee the United States has no intention to attack North Korea.
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- "Concerns felt by the (South Korean) public and
voiced by the media of a potential U.S. attack on North Korea are not based
on true facts," another Unification Ministry official quoted Minister
Jeong Se-hyun as telling lawmakers.
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- "There has been no mention by U.S. government officials
of an attack against North Korea," Jeong was quoted as saying.
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- The latest crisis began in October, when U.S. officials
said North Korea had admitted covertly working to develop nuclear arms.
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- Pyongyang insists any nuclear program it may have would
be purely defensive in face of what it perceives as a U.S. military threat
to its very existence.
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- The impoverished Stalinist state has embarked on a campaign
to force Washington to enter direct talks and negotiate a non-aggression
pact. Washington prefers a multilateral approach.
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- Over the past month, North Korea has intercepted a U.S.
spy plane in international airspace and test-fired two short-range missiles.
A Japanese report said the North may soon test-fire a longer-range missile
capable of hitting major Japanese cities.
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- Meanwhile, high-ranking South Korean officials sounded
out major powers for a peaceful resolution to Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
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- In Washington, South Korea's Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan
met Secretary of State Colin Powell and suggested that the United States
take the initiative toward North Korea along the lines of the Nixon administration's
overtures to communist China in the 1970s.
-
- Powell told reporters after his meeting that Yoon had
given him some ideas to deal with North Korea, but Washington still thought
a multilateral forum was the best idea.
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- Seoul's Defense Minister Cho Young-kil met his Japanese
counterpart Shigeru Ishiba in Seoul on Saturday and reiterated South Korea's
policy of dealing with North Korea through talks.
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- Relations between the two Koreas, locked in a tense standoff
since the 1950-53 Korean War, warmed significantly in 2000 when the South's
then president, Kim Dae-jung, held a summit with North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il.
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- Subsequent rapprochement efforts slowed to a trickle
after President Bush took office the following year signaling a more hard-line
approach to North Korea.
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- He later bracketed the isolated Stalinist state together
with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil," accused of seeking to
acquire and spread weapons of mass destruction.
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