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North Korea Says U.S. Building Up Arms, Threatens to Boost Nuclear Program
North Korea accused the U.S. of introducing heavy weapons to an area close to the border in what it said was a “premeditated provocation” that would prompt countermeasures, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The Korean People’s Army sent a message of protest about the arms build-up and demanded that they be removed, KCNA reported. “Various types” of heavy weapons were assembled near the Panmunjom Conference Hall at 7:25 a.m. on June 26, KCNA said.
North Korea threatened earlier today to bolster its nuclear program in a “newly developed way to cope with the U.S. persistent hostile policy.” A Foreign Ministry statement carried by KCNA didn’t elaborate on how the nuclear program will be strengthened.
The threats came as U.S. President Barack Obama urged that the world community must confront the communist country over its “belligerent behavior” in sinking a South Korean warship. The U.S. is backing South Korea’s push for United Nations Security Council condemnation of North Korea for the alleged attack on March 26 on the 1,200-ton Cheonan that killed 46 sailors.
“The introduction of heavy weapons to the area around the conference hall where armed forces of both sides stand in acute confrontation is a premeditated provocation aimed to spark off a serious military conflict,” KCNA said today. If the U.S. doesn’t remove the weapons, North Korea will “take strong military countermeasures,” the report said, without elaborating.
A U.S. military spokesman in Seoul wasn’t immediately able to comment when called today.
The U.S. yesterday agreed to delay a planned handover of “wartime control” to South Korea to December 2015 from April 2012. The U.S., which fought on South Korea’s side during the 1950-1953 Korean War, has about 28,500 troops in the Asian country. South Korea remains technically at war with the North since the war ended in a cease-fire that was never replaced by a peace treaty.
North Korea is already under UN Security Council sanctions after it tested nuclear weapons in 2006 and May 2009. The so- called six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program were last held in December 2008 and South Korea has said the disarmament negotiations shouldn’t resume until the Cheonan incident is resolved.
“This is not an issue where you’ve got two parties of moral equivalent who are having an argument,” Obama said yesterday at a news conference in Toronto, Canada where he attended the Group of 20 summit. “This is a situation where you have a belligerent nation that engaged in provocative and deadly acts.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Richardson at brichardson8@bloomberg.net Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net
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