N. Korea criticizes U.S. air training as 'hostile'

(ATTN: ADDS 8th para for Seoul spokesman quote, detail in 5th para)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea denounced the United States on Monday for
ratcheting up what it called threats of war, ahead of a U.S. Air Force exercise
to be held across South Korea this week.

U.S. Air Forces Korea stages the drill quarterly. The week-long training involves
more than 8,500 U.S. troops, mostly airmen, according to a report on Sunday by
U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
The paper quoted 1st Lt. Malinda C. Singleton, spokesman for Osan base's 51st
Fighter Wing, as saying, "Our primary goal obviously is to make sure we're 'Ready
to fight tonight' and win against a possible North Korean attack."
The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) accused the U.S. of threatening
regional peace, laying out in detail a list of military jets and vessels that it
claims have been freshly deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense to the
Asia-Pacific region this year.
"The U.S. has made our republic its primary target in carrying out preemptive
strikes," the KCNA said, adding, "two thirds of the U.S. Air Force's strength are
concentrated in and around the Korean Peninsula."
The Pentagon deployed three of the newest F-22 fighter jet models to bases in
South Korea, Guam and Japan's Okinawa this year in addition to dispatching an
unmanned aerial reconnaissance system, Global Hawk, to its Guam air base, the
report said.
"The U.S. military enhancement maneuver on the Korean Peninsula starkly
contradicts the U.S. administration's so-called 'official position' that says it
has no intention to invade our republic. This testifies that the U.S. hostile
policy against our republic firmly continues behind the curtain of dialogue," the
KCNA said.
"It's fair to say the criticism came in relation to the training," Seoul's
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun noted, although the report did not
specifically mention it.
The Pentagon currently maintains some 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent
against possible aggression from the North. The U.S. military says its regular
war drills and joint exercises with South Korean troops are defense-oriented. The
North criticizes the training as a prelude to war.
The two Koreas technically remain at war as the three-year Korean War ended in
1953 with only a ceasefire, not a formal peace treaty.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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