NKorean Drill

"Landep News"

NKorean Drill

NKorean military executed this week a live-fire drill near the disputed border with SKorea, as means to restate the anger of Pyongyang over the common military drills the U.S. and SKorea have scheduled for April. The Korean officials have voiced anger at the military drill of their neighbors and fears have raised over a possible friction between the two Koreas, in spite of the new spirit the leader in the North seems to have brought with him when he assumed power after his father’s demise in December.

The United States said that the good relations between the two Koreans are crucial for the success of talks on the subject of the nuclear program of NKorea. Last week NKorea announced a moratorium on any nuclear activity and that it would allow an inspection at its most important nuclear facility, which represents a breakthrough in the quest to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

The United States and NKorea are scheduled to meet on Wednesday in Beijing, China, where they are expected to work out the details related to offering 240,000 metric tons of food, as part of the moratorium agreement sealed last week.

The brokered agreement with NKorea raised hopes that the six-party format talks on Korean denuclearization could be resumed, now that the new regime seems more interested in solving an economic and social mayhem inside than to project a nuclear power in the region.

Playing for a leverage in the negotiations for food, NKorean leader has visited the military installations along the border with SKorea, and inspected a few military units.

NKorea calls the American-SKorean drills a preparation for an invasion and a lack of respect because they are scheduled to happen within the 100-day mourning period following Kim Jong-il’s death.

NKorea is also voicing anger over the SKorean’s president Lee Myung-bak’s decision to stop an aid policy that had been in use until 2008, when he came to power.

State media in NKorea reports that the great leader of the country visited the 4th Corps units of the Korean People’s Army and ordered them to launch a powerful retaliation strike, if provoked.

The units the leader visit include the one who shelled Yeonpyeong island in 2010, causing four SKoreans to die on that occasion and many others to be wounded. The SKorean defense minister said on Tuesday it had no knowledge of the drills in the north.

The Koreas have been in a state of war since the 1950s, when the Korean war left them separated. Last year, after a year of tension between North and South, former leader in the North, Kim Jong-il, manifested a wish to resume dialogue on the nuclear program of his country, with the intention of releasing the economic pressure he was under.

Before he resumed contact with the United States, Kim traveled to Siberia, where he met the then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, with whom he agreed to allow Russia build a gas pipeline over his territory in exchange for a supply of grain.

When negotiations with the Americans were resumed, Kim Jong-il insisted on the necessity to address the matter of a peace treaty between NKorea and the United States, considering that the countries were legally at war since the Korean war ended with an armistice.

NKorea insisted that a peace treaty was necessary if talks were to be engaged on the North’s nuclear program. The Americans insisted that the nuclear file receive more attention than the formalities of the peace treaty, which was anyway being drafted by the other four parties involved: Russia, Japan, SKorea and China.

When he assumed power, young Kim Jong-eun, a young man in his late 20s, who is expected to rule the country under the ambit of the military and political leaders, he promised to continue the policies drafted by his father, but it seems that the precarious economic situation the country is confronted with makes it imperative that he use the nuclear program as a means of obtaining food, which is one of the purposes the program served in the past too.

Thank's for link:

Tweet