Pat Dollard | Young Americans

SEOUL, Jan 20 (AFP) Jan 20, 2008

North Korea on Sunday criticised a US deployment of military jets to South Korea, saying the move jeopardised nuclear disarmament moves and risked “tension and war.”

A spokesman for the powerful Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, which handles South Korean affairs, described the training deployment of extra F-16 and F-117 jets as “reckless.”

“Such reckless moves for military confrontation clearly show who is scuttling the peaceful solution to the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula and sparking off tension and war,” he told the official Korean Central News Agency, monitored here.

The US military has confirmed plans for such manoeuvres but describes them as routine.

The latest remarks come amid growing US frustration over a lack of progress in the six-nation process after North Korea missed a key December 31 deadline to disable its main nuclear facilities and fully declare its atomic programmes.

Pyongyang was to receive economic aid and other incentives under the deal, struck last February in the tortuous talks also involving China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

US President George W. Bush’s special North Korea envoy for human rights, Jay Lefkowitz, charged Thursday that Pyongyang was not likely to give up its atomic weapons before Bush’s term ends in January 2009.

He also said that China and South Korea — the two nations with the most leverage over the North Korean regime — were “unwilling to apply significant pressure on Pyongyang” to abandon its nuclear weapons arsenal.

The US government on Friday quickly backtracked, repudiating Lefkowitz’s criticisms of China and South Korea and reaffirming its commitment to the six-country strategy.