North Korea Proposes Military Talks With U.S.

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, July 13 -- North Korea revived its old demand for direct military talks with the United States on Friday, as international efforts to restart multinational talks on ending its nuclear weapons programs gained momentum.

In a statement carried by its official news media, the North’s Korea People’s Army proposed military talks at "any place and at any time" and "for the purpose of discussing the issues related to ensuring the peace and security on the Korean Peninsula."

The statement didn’t provide further details. But for decades, North Korea has been trying to engage the United States in direct military dialogue aimed at winning one of its regime’s key policy goals: a permanent peace treaty with the United States to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

With its economy in a shambles and its 1.2 million-member military sucking away a lion’s share of the impoverished nation’s s meager national resources, the regime believes that a peace treaty will ensure its survival and enable it to focus more on rebuilding the economy, experts say.

There was no immediate U.S. response to the North Korean proposal on Friday.

But Washington had previously rejected such a proposal, objecting any talks that would exclude its ally South Korea and China.

China fought on the North Korean side during the war, while the United States led U.N. forces on the South Korean side. The United States and China are both signatories to the 1953 armistice, along with North Korea. South Korea did not sign.

North Korea is set to resume six-party talks on Wednesday with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia on how to end its nuclear weapons programs. On Friday, a team of U.N. nuclear inspectors arrived in Beijing on their way to North Korea the next day to monitor and verify the shutdown of North Korea’s main nuclear complex.

Pyongyang’s latest demand for direct military talks with Washington has been expected because the six nations had previously agreed to consider peace talks on the Korean Peninsula if North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons programs.

U.S. and South Korean officials envisioned four-way peace talks involving all major participants of the Korean War: the United States, China and the two Koreas. But North Korea prefers direct talks with the United States in a ploy experts say is aimed at driving a wedge between Washington and Seoul.

Military dialogue looms large in North Korea’s strategy and is destined to complicate an ultimate resolution of the nuclear crisis. The North demands that the United States withdraw all U.S. troops from South Korea before giving up its nuclear weapons and signing a peace treaty.

The Korean cease-fire has never been replaced by a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically in a state of war. The United States keeps 30,000 troops in the South to support the South’s 670,000 strong military to guard against North Korea.

To force Washington into peace talks, North Korea has repeatedly called the armistice a "piece of useless paper." It also repeatedly warned that without a peace treaty, the Korean Peninsula remains at the "brink of nuclear war."

On Friday, it said it "will have no option but to exert utmost efforts for further rounding off the means for retaliatory strike strong enough to cope with the U.S. nuclear attack and pre-emptive strike in order to protect its dignity, sovereignty and right to existence."