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Topic: More rumors of war- N Korea warns nuclear war could break out any time!
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Korean airspace violation causes nuclear alert
Paul Eckert in Seoul
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=217582003
NORTH Korea warned of nuclear war “at any time” yesterday as one of its fighter planes intruded into South Korea’s airspace for the first time in 20 years, setting off an emergency response.
The air incursion, the first by the North since 1983, was a fresh reminder of the tensions awaiting the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, when he visits the region for the weekend.
North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said in a commentary that “the situation on the Korean peninsula and north-east Asia is so alarming that a nuclear war may break out at any moment”.
The United States, it said, was deliberately sabotaging North Korea’s improvements in relations with Seoul and Japan by “fabricating” a secret Pyongyang nuclear arms programme in a bid to dominate the region.
“The US will get nothing from talking about ‘military counteraction’ against” North Korea “and maintaining a hard-line stance towards it”, said the commentary, issued just days before Mr Powell visits the region.
The South Korean defence ministry said the South scrambled six F-5E fighters after a North Korean MiG-19 flew almost eight miles into its air space. After two minutes the plane returned across the border over the Yellow Sea.
A South Korea anti-aircraft missile unit based near Incheon, a seaport west of Seoul, was given the order to be ready to fire. The first South Korean jets were 19 miles, or a two-minute flight, from the enemy jet when it began retreating, said an air force colonel, Oh Sung-dae.
“We firmly protest this intrusion and strongly demand the North prevent further incidents,” the defence ministry said, calling on Pyongyang to take “responsible measures”.
A spokesman, Brigadier General Hwang Young-soo, said in a statement that the North Korean incursion “could result in very serious consequences in the current situation on the Korean Peninsula”.
The violation of the Yellow Sea border near the site of two deadly naval clashes in recent years followed a statement from the North Korean military on Tuesday threatening to abandon the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war.
The Korean People’s Army said it would walk away from the 50-year truce if economic sanctions were imposed on Pyongyang because of the four-month crisis over its suspected drive to manufacture nuclear weapons.
Disagreements between the US and Asian states over how to end the stand-off are expected to dominate Mr Powell’s four-day trip to Japan, China and South Korea starting tomorrow with a visit to Tokyo.
He continues to Beijing on Sunday and to Seoul on Monday to attend Tuesday’s inauguration of the South Korean president-elect, Roh Moo-hyun.
The US has sought without visible success to persuade regional powers, notably China, to press North Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear programme and favours multilateral talks to urge Pyongyang to do so.
North Korea wants a non-aggression pact with the United States and has called for bilateral talks, something other countries in the region, particularly China, are believed to favour but Washington has resisted.
“There are clearly differences,” said a state department spokesman, Richard Boucher. “That’s why we continue to discuss how we proceed.”
Mr Roh, who in contrast to the United States has said he would rule out the use of force with North Korea, said he believed the crisis can be settled through dialogue. “The mere hint of war and the anxiety it entails can inflict great losses upon us,” he said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think-tank.
“We do not want war or North Korea’s collapse. But North Korea must realise that it has no alternative but to open up and reform.”
South Korea and its neighbours have also voiced reluctance to impose sanctions on the North – a move the UN Security Council deferred on Wednesday to allow for further diplomacy.
The North Korean crisis began in October, when US officials said the secretive communist state had admitted to pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.
It escalated over the past two months as Pyongyang expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, said it would pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and threatened to resume missile testing.
While the US has said it is willing to talk directly to North Korea about ending its nuclear programme, it has ruled out offering it inducements to do so and has made clear it wants to deal with the issue on a multilateral basis.
The United States keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea under the 50-year-old security alliance. The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war because the 1953 armistice never gave way to a peace treaty.
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