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North Korea’s army threatened Sunday to abandon a crucial 50-year-old security accord that ended the Korean war, accusing the United States of preparing to attack the Communist country. The threat came after South Korea said 12 days ago that the United States agreed to withdraw a large portion of its troops guarding the truce village of Panmunjom in the four-kilometer-wide (2.4 mile) buffer zone by October.

Panmunjom and its adjacent joint security area (JSA) have been guarded by North Korean soldiers and U.S. troops since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice accord. South Korean officials said the U.S. troop cut in Panmunjom was designed to give South Korea more control over the defense of its border with North Korea.

The United States has proposed the transfer of its duties in Panmunjom to South Korea as part of broad plans to relocate troops in the region. But a North Korean People’s Army (KPA) spokesman said the U.S. troop cut in Panmunjom showed it was giving up its duty as a signatory to the armistice accord (AA).

“The U.S. is massively shipping ultra-modern arms and equipment into South Korea and staging war exercises against the DPRK one after another,” the official said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

 

“The U.S. decision to take even its small force out of the JSA…against this backdrop indicates U.S. preparations for a preemptive attack upon the DPRK (North Korea) are under way at a final phase,” he said.

“This situation prompts the KPA side not to allow such a thing…and compels it to take whatever strong measure to protect its own security,” he said. North Korea would “comprehensively examine the issue of security” in Panmunjom and “all the provisions” of the armistice accord, he said.

The spokesman said the United States should not forget it was technically at war with North Korea and “in an unstable state of armistice as they have not yet settled the belligerent relationship.” U.S. and North Korean officers have maintained unofficial contact in the truce village to prevent accidental conflicts. Panmunjom serves an inter-Korean contact point but North Korea insists it will talk only with the United States on security matters related to the 1953 armistice accord. [South Korea is not a signatory to the Truce.

The spokesman denounced the United States for abandoning “the last means of contact” and “the security for talks” with North Korea. U.S troops are in charge of security in the buffer zone.

“The disturbance of the order and security in Panmunjom…would have a serious impact on the preservation of the armistice in Korea and this would push the situation to a very grave phase of tension,” he said.

South Korea and the United States are locked in talks on the relocation of some 37,000 U.S. troops stationed here under a mutual defense pact. The relocation calls for the United States to relinquish its only military outpost, Outpost Ouellette, near Panmunjom to South Korea this year. A platoon of U.S. soldiers in Ouellette have patrolled a key part of the buffer zone.

The United States also wants to relocate a 15,000-member U.S. infantry division from the frontline to bases south of Seoul.

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—The News (Pakistan), April 26, 2004