[09/March/2010]

Seoul, March 09 (Saba)- North Korea has recently established an independent military division in charge of deploying and operating intermediate-range ballistic missiles, South Korean / Yonhap/ News Agency reported Tuesday, a move indicating the North''s determination to continue developing missiles with a range of over 3,000 kilometers. North Korea in 2007 rolled out its first intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which is supposedly capable of reaching Russia, India and Guam, according to Qatar News Agency (QNA).

"We believe North Korea has set up a division under its Korean People''s Army General Staff charged solely with arranging and controlling new intermediate-range missiles," the South Korean government source told Yonhap.

"We believe the operation of this separate unit indicates North Korea''s intention to produce new IRBMs," the source said, adding the weapon poses a threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula as well as the US 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo in Japan.

The 10-day US-South Korean joint military drill, which began Monday, mobilizes tens of thousands of troops from both sides. The North said Monday it placed its 1.2 million troops in a combat-ready posture in response to the start of the South Korean-US war games.

This year''s war games, the largest between South Korea and the U.S., comes amid a flurry of diplomacy aimed at bringing North Korea back to six-party talks on its nuclear ambitions. North Korea said the drill amounts to a rehearsal for a preemptive nuclear attack on the country and has vowed to suspend all military dialogue with the U.S. and the South during the period.

"The DPRK is fully ready for dialogue and war. It will continue bolstering up its nuclear deterrent as long as the U.S. military threats and provocations go on," an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman said, according to the North''s official Korean Central News Agency.

Meanwhile, North Korea said Tuesday it is ready for both dialogue and war, vowing to enlarge its nuclear arsenal to counter what it calls US "military threats and provocations" against Pyongyang. South Korea and the US dismiss the North Korean accusation as rhetoric, defending the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle drill as purely defensive and tailored to only deal with North Korean aggression.

The allies remain technically at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce. North Korea said it will not return to the six-party talks on its nuclear ambitions unless the US agrees on separate negotiations toward a peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. Pyongyang also demands the removal of UN sanctions imposed on it for its nuclear test in May last year.

The talks, which include the two Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia and China, have not been held since late 2008. The statement from the North''s foreign ministry was the latest in a series of harsh rhetoric against an annual joint exercise that South Korea and the United States launched Monday.

The 10-day drill mobilizes tens of thousands of troops from both sides. South Korea and the U.S. dismiss the North Korean accusation as rhetoric, defending the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle drill as purely defensive and tailored to only deal with North Korean aggression.

The North said the launch of the exercise "cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation," and argued that it attests to the need to forge a peace treaty to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula. "Without a peace treaty it is impossible to defuse the military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula," it said, adding efforts toward its denuclearization would also remain in limbo. The March 8-18 exercise by South and the U.S. "is an act of chilling the efforts to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula," it said. Inter-Korean traffic, which came to a near halt last year during the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise, remains normal this week despite North Korean threats, the Seoul government said.

Saba