Wednesday, March 10, 2010

SEOUL (AP) North Korea has recently created an army division in charge of newly developed intermediate-range missiles capable of striking U.S. forces in Japan and Guam, a South Korean news agency said Tuesday.

The report came as North Korea stepped up its war rhetoric against the U.S. and South Korea after the allies started annual drills aimed at improving their defense capabilities.

The North's People's Army recently launched a division supervising operational deployment of missiles with a range of more than 3,000 km that it had developed in recent years, Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified South Korean government source.

The missiles could pose a threat to U.S. forces in Japan, Guam and other Pacific areas that are to be redeployed in time of emergency on the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap said.

The report, however, didn't provide further details such as how many missiles the new division possesses and where they are positioned.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it couldn't confirm the Yonhap report. However, a ministry document published last year showed that the North deployed a new type of medium-range missile believed to be the same one as it displayed during a military parade in 2007.

If confirmed, the division's launch could suggest that the North has succeeded in developing more medium-range missiles since 2007 and needed a bigger unit to manage them, said Ohm Tae Am of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

The division's creation would also mean the North has a unit whose primary role is to prevent the U.S. from redeploying its troops in the Pacific to the Korean Peninsula in the event of a conflict, said Baek Seung Joo of the same institute.

The North's missile and nuclear weapons programs are major regional security concerns.

On Tuesday, the North continued its salvo against the U.S. and South Korea over their military drills, which the regime has long slammed as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the North will continue to bolster its nuclear capability as long as the U.S. military threats persist.

The ministry, however, said the North is ready for both dialogue and war, a position that contrasts from a military statement Sunday that the North would break off dialogue with the U.S. in response to the drills.

In a Pyongyang street, citizens read newspaper articles reporting North Korean troops were placed on high alert following the drills, according to footage broadcast by APTN in North Korea's capital. "This clearly shows once again that the U.S. and South Korean authorities are peace breakers, bringing the clouds of war to this land. They are warmongers who are fond of war," Kim Chol Ok, a Pyongyang resident, said.

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