North Korea Says It's Ready for War

North Korea Says It's Ready for War

NewsMax Wires
Monday, Dec. 10, 2001

SEOUL, South Korea -- UPI -- North Korea denounced the United States Sunday for planning to make the communist regime the second target for its war against terrorism after Afghanistan, warning "unimaginably telling blows" to U.S. troops.

"They (Americans) are blowing us up for serving as a terrorist state with the purpose of making the Korean peninsula the second Afghanistan under the pretext of a war against terrorism," the North's state-run press said.

The United States had pretended to improve relations with North Korea by proposing a dialogue during the early stage of the war in Afghanistan, said Rodong Sinmun of the ruling Workers' Party.

"The United States, however, changed face abruptly after the war in Afghanistan developed in favor of the United States," the daily said. As part of efforts to raise tensions, Washington has blamed human rights and religious conditions in North Korea and urged the North to open its military facilities to international inspection, it said.

"The U.S. designation of the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea as the target of the post-Afghanistan war operation compels the Korean people to be in full combat preparedness to lay down their lives for the country," said the daily carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

"The DPRK is not Afghanistan. The DPRK is ready for defense and attack," the daily said, vowing to build up its military to counter "U.S. strong-arm policy" against the communist state.

"We will deal a blow to the invaders to an extent which is beyond imagination to show what the fate of the head of terrorists will be like, if the imperialist United States chooses to stage a war," Rodong Sinmun said.

The warning came amid a new round of tension between the two countries as North Korea rejected U.S. calls for inspections to hunt for suspected weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical arms.

North Korea said last week that it would not give up its missile development program, calling it a "sovereign right" to guard against military threats from the United States.

The North has escalated its anti-U.S. rhetoric after Washington deployed more fighter jets to South Korea in November to fill in for a U.S. aircraft carrier that left the region to support the military campaign in Afghanistan.

"The U.S. deployment of more task forces in South Korea on the plea of filling up 'vacuum of combat power' was designed to conduct an operation (against North Korea) in the wake of the war in Afghanistan," Rodong Sinmun said.

The United States has 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea under a mutual defense treaty following the 1950-53 Korean War. The North has called for the withdrawal of the American troops in the South as a "precondition" to any arms reduction on the Korean peninsula.