N.Korea Sees U.S. Troop Pullback as Prelude to War

June 27, 2003

SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S.-South Korean plan to transfer American troops away from the border with North Korea is designed to set the stage for a pre-emptive strike on the communist state, Pyongyang's ruling party daily said Friday.

On June 5, Washington and Seoul unveiled a plan for removing U.S. forces from near the Demilitarized Zone -- the stretch of no-man's land dividing the South from North Korea -- and relocating them in the center of the peninsula.

The United States described the plan, which comes amid a deepening impasse over North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions, as part of a wider U.S. redeployment worldwide to create a more flexible presence and reduce friction with local communities.

But North Korea's Rodong Sinmun, the official mouthpiece of the ruling party, said the long-term redeployment plan was "a very dangerous military move which should not be overlooked."

"The U.S. imperialists are applying a war method based on high-tech with main emphasis put on missile strikes and air raids rather than land attack in carrying out their war of overseas aggression," it said.

Analysts had warned that Pyongyang could misinterpret the troop move either as a weakening of the 50-year-old U.S. security commitment to South Korea or as a plan to take troops out of range of North Korea's artillery before a pre-emptive strike on the North's nuclear facilities.

The nuclear crisis erupted in October when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to a secret nuclear arms program.

The two Korean states remain technically at war because the armed truce which ended the 1950-53 Korean conflict never led to a peace treaty.

The timetable for the U.S. redeployment has not been spelled out.

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