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October 26, 2004
[Have an opinion about the issues discussed in this article?
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Stars and Stripes Pacific Edition
SEOUL — North
Korea has called a semi-annual exercise by Okinawa-based U.S.
Marines
in South Korea a “disturbing military move,” claiming it is a pretext
to an invasion of the North.
Some 450 Marines from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary
Force are in Korea for a month of combat engineer training with
South Korean Marine and Army
units.
The training takes place twice a year
as part of the Korean Incremental Training Program, or KITP.
This training rotation is scheduled to
last through the early part of November, U.S. military officials
said last week. The training focuses on river crossings and other
missions that can’t be replicated on the island of Okinawa.
This rotation also includes two elements
of U.S. Navy sailors, including a Seabee construction detachment
and a unit that operates a battlefield surgical hospital.
U.S. officials have characterized the
training as enhancing South Korean and U.S. troops’ ability to work
together and take defensive measures.
But Monday, North Korea’s official news
agencies said the exercise “will only result in increasing the danger
of war,” the Korean Central News Agency reported, citing a commentary
in the Minju Joson newspaper.
Coupled with U.S. moves to “deploy new
type ultra-modern weapons,” a reference to U.S. plans to invest
some $11 billion in high-tech upgrades over the next three years,
the North sees the moves as “aimed at mounting a pre-emptive attack
on the DPRK,” using the acronym for the North’s official name of
the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Last week, the North said the U.S. plan
to remove 12,500 troops over the next three years was a ruse in
preparation for an invasion.
On Monday, the North said it would meet
“U.S. aggression” with its own measures.
“The DPRK will in the future, too, make
all efforts to beef up its military deterrent force,” KCNA said,
“to defend the sovereignty and right to existence of the country
and the nation.”
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