(2nd LD) N. Korea criticizes U.S. air training as 'hostile'

(ATTN: COMBINES previous stories on election, tangerine aid, ADDS a provincial
official's quote)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea denounced the United States on Monday for
raising military threats through an ongoing U.S. air drill across South Korea,
while preparing for an important election that will bring about reshuffles in
Pyongyang.
U.S. Air Forces Korea stages the quarterly drill this week. The regular 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) denounced the air training as a
prelude to war.
"The U.S. has made our republic its primary target in carrying out preemptive
strikes," the KCNA said, adding that "two thirds of the U.S. Air Force's strength
is concentrated in and around the Korean Peninsula."
The report laid 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 new year. The Pentagon dispatched three of the newest F-22 fighter
jet models to bases in South Korea, Guam and Japan's Okinawa this year in
addition to positioning an unmanned aerial reconnaissance system, Global Hawk, in
its Guam air base, the KCNA 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.
The report did not directly mention the latest U.S. air drill, but Seoul's
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun noted, "It's fair to say the
criticism came in relation to the training."
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 as well as joint exercises with South Korean troops are
defense-oriented. The North routinely criticizes such drills as a prelude to war.

Internally, North Korea began preparing for its long-overdue parliamentary
elections by forming an election watchdog.
The KCNA said in a two-sentence statement on Monday that the Supreme People's
Assembly set up an election committee and named Yang Hyong-sop, vice president of
the Supreme People's Assembly Presidium, as the committee chair.
North Korea bypassed the vote that was expected to be held by September amid
rumors that leader Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in August. An announcement last
week that elections will be held on March 8 was widely viewed as a sign that Kim
has recovered enough to appear in public.
North Korea typically establishes an election watchdog "as part of its election
promotion propaganda," an official at Seoul's Unification Ministry said on
customary condition of anonymity. But it has no democratic functions, he noted,
as the Workers' Party nominates single candidates for each electorate.
The current 687 lawmakers' five-year term expired in August.
A new assembly usually also brings a reshuffle of the Cabinet and military, Seoul
officials say. New lawmakers reappoint Kim Jong-il as chairman of the National
Defense Commission that oversees the North's 1.1-million-strong military, as the
chairman's term is set to coincide with that of the assembly.
The vote comes amid Pyongyang's stepped-up drive to resuscitate its frail
economy. North Korea has been shaking up several industry-related posts in its
37-member Cabinet since late last year, according to Seoul officials.
North Korea vowed in its New Year editorial to "solve food problems by our own
efforts" and focus on rebuilding its industrial infrastructure. A state-run think
tank in Seoul, the Institute for National Security Strategy, expects Pyongyang
will promote young economic elite in the upcoming election to ratchet up its
economic drive.
Meanwhile, the provincial government of South Korea's Jeju Island said it will go
ahead with its annual shipment of tangerines and carrots to North Korea despite
frozen inter-Korean relations.
The central government refused to pay part of the cost this winter for the first
time in a decade, but the semi-tropical island said it will send 300 tons of
tangerines and 1,000 tons of carrots worth about 600 million won (US$441,176)
this week, Jeju officials said.
"We decided to continue it because it's a humanitarian project that should not be
bound to inter-Korean diplomatic relations," Yoon Chang-wan, a provincial
official handling the tangerine shipment, said.
Tangerines are a local specialty that do not grow in North Korea's cold weather.
Jeju has sent tangerines and carrots to North Korea every winter since 1998, with
the central government paying for about half the cost.
Inter-Korean relations have dipped to their lowest since conservative South
Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008. Pyongyang cut off
dialogue and intensified its anti-Seoul rhetoric, while Seoul suspended its
customary food and fertilizer aid to the impoverished state.
Non-governmental aid, however, has continued. A South Korean farmers'
organization, the Korea Peasants League, sent 174 tons of rice to North Korea
last week following food aid worth 380 million won for mothers and children in
North Korea from the Buddhist organization Jungto Society.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)