N. Korea revs up threat ahead of Clinton's visit

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead, ADDS latest KCNA statement, Clinton's planned arrival)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Feb. 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Thursday an inter-Korean military
clash may erupt "any moment," and South Korea and the United States will pay a
"dear price," stepping up its coercive diplomacy ahead of U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's visit here.

Pyongyang issued a drove of acerbic statements in a single day, blasting Seoul's
conservative government and warning against a planned joint war drill set to be
held by the two allies next month.
"Now that the political and military confrontation between the north and the
south has gone into extremes, only physical clash may break out any moment," the
official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in English, just hours before
Clinton was to make her first visit to Seoul as the top U.S. diplomat.
Clinton is expected to focus on North Korea's nuclear program and alleged missile
testing preparations, along with alliance issues and a free trade pact on her
two-day visit here as part of a four-nation Asia trip.
During her visit to Japan on Tuesday, Clinton warned the possible missile launch
would be "very unhelpful." But she reaffirmed that Washington will normalize ties
with Pyongyang, establish a peace treaty on the peninsula and offer massive
economic aid if the North gives up its nuclear program.
A day earlier, South Korea and the U.S. said they will hold their annual military
exercise from March 9-20 across South Korea. Pyongyang has denounced such drills
as preparations for preemptive strikes, while the allies say they are
"defense-oriented."
"The U.S. and South Korean authorities will be forced to pay a dear price for the
preparations," the KCNA said in a separate statement.
The upcoming war exercise, called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, is based on OPLAN
5027, a war plan that allows the U.S. to take command of the combined forces upon
North Korean invasion.
About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53
Korean War that ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
North Korea denied reports of its missile preparations, saying it is working on
"space development" and its nuclear and missile threats are "non-existent."
"Traitor Lee and his group, far from drawing a proper lesson from the serious
crisis caused by their treachery, are more frantically inciting hostility toward
the DPRK," a military spokesman said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
"But they will only meet the merciless and stern punishment by the army and
people," the spokesman said.
The North also renewed its warning of naval clashes along the western sea border,
along which two bloody skirmishes that occurred in the past decade, leaving
scores of soldiers dead and wounded on both sides.
"Inter-Korean relations are at their worst crisis," Radio Pyongyang said. "A
dangerous situation is arising in the western sea and the regions where the two
sides are in standoff, and one does not know when military clashes will occur."
The Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea was drawn unilaterally by the U.N.
Command after the Korean War. Pyongyang has insisted it be redrawn further south.
Yoo Ho-yeol, a political science professor at Korea University, said North Korea
wants to achieve three aims through its stepped-up rhetoric: pressure Washington
into quickly holding direct nuclear negotiations; force Seoul to soften its
hard-line stance; and boost internal unity ahead of the country's important
parliament elections next month.
"North Korea wants to show it has the ability to raise tension on the peninsula,
and that the U.S. has to hurry for negotiations," Yoo said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)