Global Security Newswire

North Korea announced yesterday that it would continue to build up its nuclear forces and accused the United States of doing everything in its power to "bring down" the Stalinist regime, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 8).

An unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman said that "the U.S. is leaving no means untried to bring down the D.P.R.K. including military threat, economic sanctions and ideological and cultural poisoning."

"(The North) will continue bolstering up its nuclear deterrent as long as the U.S. military threats and provocations go on," the spokesman said.

Earlier this week, Pyongyang announced that it had put its army on high alert as South Korean and United States soldiers began a large-scale joint military exercise. The North usually greets the annual drill with hostility but it has yet to result in a significant incident (Jack Kim, Reuters, March 9).

U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens disputed the North's characterization of the exercise as a "rehearsal for nuclear attack," the Korea Herald reported.

"The United States has no hostile intent towards the people of North Korea nor are we threatening to change the North Korean regime through force," Stephens said in Seoul.

"Our aim is to find diplomatic solutions to working with North Korea," she said.

Stephens said Washington "remains willing to engage North Korea bilaterally" within the established multilateral process for denuclearization of the Asian state.

While Pyongyang has given some indications that it is ready to return to the stalled six-party talks, "we need to see actions," she said (Kim So-hyun, Korea Herald, March 11).

The multilateral talks involve China, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas and the United States. They were last held in December 2008.

Tokyo's senior negotiator, Akitaka Saiki, is expected in South Korea this week for discussions with Seoul on how to persuade North Korea to return to the talks, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Saiki was scheduled to visit Beijing yesterday for talks with his Chinese counterpart in the six-nation talks. The meetings are part of a larger effort that includes the United States to coordinate efforts on the North following a February trip by the Stalinist's country's nuclear envoy, Kim Kye Gwan, to China (Yonhap News Agency, March 9).