N. Korea accuses S. Korea of border provocation amid tension

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By Sam Kim
SEOUL, April 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea accused South Korea Wednesday of meddling
with a marker on their heavily armed border, calling it a military provocation
and threatening to retaliate in "self-defense," while South Korea denied the
allegation.
The accusation came a day after the divided states ended their first official
talks in more than a year without progress on the release of a South Korean
detained in the communist state for over three weeks.
In a statement released through its official media, North Korea said South Korean
forces "recently moved Marker No. 0768 of the Military Demarcation Line" dozens
of meters to the north.
About 1,290 markers -- each placed 200 meters apart -- are used to demarcate the
240-km-long Demilitarized Zone that cuts across the Korean Peninsula.
Accusing South Korea of violating the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean
War, North Korea said it will "take a measure for self-defense" unless the marker
is restored to its previous position.
"This serious military provocation is a wanton violation of the Armistice
Agreement and a deliberate and premeditated action to escalate tension," the
North said through its Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Seoul. "The South
Korean warmongers will be held entirely accountable for all the ensuing
consequences."
South Korea denied the allegation, arguing its forces have not approached the
marker that is located midway along the heavily guarded frontier.
"We did not approach it. Therefore, we did not move it," Army Col. Park Sung-woo,
spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Seoul, adding the marker in
question is in fact overseen by North Korean authorities.
"We call on North Korea to stop unnecessarily raising tension by making
groundless claims," he said, spurning the North Korean allegation as
unreasonable.
The latest dispute comes amid heightened tension on the divided peninsula after
North Korea launched a rocket on April 5 despite warnings it would be considered
a provocative test of ballistic missile technology.
North Korea says it has succeeded in putting a satellite in orbit with its
"Unha-2" rocket, while South Korea and the U.S. say no object entered orbit.
"The rest of the world tried to convince Kim Jong-Il that it was a wrong thing to
do," U.S. Gen. Walter Sharp said Wednesday, referring to the North Korean leader
and saying the rocket was a Taepodong-2 missile technically capable of reaching
the western U.S.
Sharp oversees 28,500 U.S. forces stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against
North Korea.
Relations between the Koreas are at their lowest point in a decade after South
Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office early last year with a pledge to get
tough on North Korea.
North Korea has responded by cutting off all dialogue, accusing Lee of aligning
with U.S. hard-liners and trying to topple its regime.
A South Korean man has been detained by North Korean authorities since March 30
after allegedly criticizing Pyongyang and attempting to convince a female North
Korean worker to defect.
North Korea said during the talks Tuesday at the joint industrial complex in its
border city of Kaesong that South Korean firms operating there would be stripped
of "special benefits."
South Korea's Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said his government will
carefully review North Korea's demand to raise land use fees and revise
contracts.
About 100 labor-intensive South Korean companies operate in Kaesong, just an
hour's drive from Seoul, employing nearly 40,000 North Korean workers. It is the
last remaining inter-Korean reconciliatory project launched by South Korea's Kim
Dae-jung administration and opened by his successor, Roh Moo-hyun.
North Korea also continues to detain two U.S. journalists, whom it says illegally
entered its territory last month along the border with China.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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