US envoy admits NKorea assignment 'tough'

NUKEWARS

S Korea mulling defence buildup on NKorea sea border: report
South Korea will bolster defence on islands near disputed waters in the Yellow Sea, news reports said Saturday, amid concerns over a possible naval clash with North Korea. The Munhwa Daily quoted an unidentified official of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying counter-measures were being considered as North Korea has been strengthening its artillery capabilities near the sea border since December. "North Korean artillery guns have often been taken out of their positions on the western coast, with gun barrels vividly exposed, since they began winter military training late last year," the official was quoted as saying. "We are considering ways to increase K-9 self-propelled guns and ground-to-air missiles on Paengnyong and Yeonpyeong islands," the official said, referring to South Korea's northernmost islands near the sea border with its northern communist neighbour. South Korea's military does not comment on intelligence matters. The newspaper said on Friday the number of guns, mostly 100-mm artillery pieces, sited on islands and along the coast in the area increased by 30 percent last year from 2007. The buildup began in early 2008 when conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took office in Seoul, it quoted an unidentified senior government official as saying. Inter-Korean relations have steadily worsened since Lee's inauguration in February last year. He rolled back his liberal predecessors' engagement policy towards Pyongyang, enraging the North. The North has suspended dialogue with the South, imposed tight border controls and warned that armed conflict could break out. It announced late last month it was scrapping peace accords with the South, including a 1991 pact in which it recognised the Yellow Sea border as an interim frontier. The announcement fuelled fears of clashes in the area, the scene of bloody naval battles in 1999 and 2002.

by Staff Writers
Seoul (AFP) Feb 15, 2009
Outgoing top US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill on Sunday said North Korean disarmament talks had been "pretty tough" amid continuing deadlock in the drive to end Pyongyang's atomic drive.

The negotiations, which began in 2003, have been mired in countless setbacks, and did not prevent the communist state from testing its first atomic bomb in 2006.

"We've had too many interruptions," Hill told journalists after farewell talks with his South Korean counterpart Kim Sook here. "It's been a pretty tough assignment."

Among the snags that hit the six-party talks -- which group the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan -- was a US-North Korean dispute over allegations that the North illegally laundered money through a Macau-based bank.

The talks led to a 2007 deal that offers the North energy aid, normalised ties with Washington and Tokyo and a permanent peace pact if it dismantles its atomic plants and hands over all of its nuclear weapons and material.

But the disarmament talks are stalled by disagreements over how the North's declared nuclear activities should be verified.

Hill restated the policy of the United States, which does not treat North Korea as a nuclear power and rejects direct disarmament talks with the communist state.

"We do not and have never accepted North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. I want to make that very clear," said Hill, who has served as top US negotiator to the talks since 2005.

Washington has yet to officially announce who will replace Hill, but he confirmed he was preparing to leave his position.

"It is my last visit here as head... of the US delegations of six-party talks," Hill said. "There will be some very competent people who will follow me. I hope we can make some progress."

Hill declined to comment on news reports that he would be named as new US ambassador to Iraq.

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NUKEWARS

Analysis: N. Korea promotes military hawks

Seoul (UPI) Feb 12, 2009
North Korea has reshuffled its top military leadership, indicating the intractable country is likely to step up its saber-rattling and Cold War-style brinkmanship and lowering hopes of a peaceful resolution to the nuclear standoff, officials and analysts in South Korea say.

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