US sends B-2s to South Korea for military drills

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — In a show of force following weeks of North Korean bluster, the U.S. on Thursday took the unprecedented step of announcing that two of its nuclear-capable B-2 bombers dropped munitions on a South Korean island as part of joint military drills.

The announcement is likely to further enrage Pyongyang, which has already issued a flood of ominous statements to highlight displeasure over the drills and U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test last month. But there were signs Thursday that it is willing to go only so far.

A North Korean industrial plant operated with South Korean know-how was running normally, despite the North's shutdown a day earlier of communication lines ordinarily used to move workers and goods across the border. At least for the moment, Pyongyang was choosing the factory's infusion of hard currency over yet another provocation.

U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement that the B-2 stealth bombers flew from a U.S. air base in Missouri and dropped munitions on a South Korean island range before returning home. It was unclear whether America's stealth bombers were used in past annual drills with South Korea, but this is the first time the military has announced their use.

The statement follows an earlier U.S. announcement that nuclear-capable B-52 bombers participated in the joint military drills.

The announcement will likely draw a strong response from Pyongyang. North Korea sees the military drills as part of a U.S. plot to invade and becomes particularly upset about U.S. nuclear activities in the region. Washington and Seoul say the drills are routine and defensive.

North Korea has already threatened nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul in recent weeks. It said Wednesday there was no need for communication in a situation "where a war may break out at any moment." Earlier this month, it announced that it considers void the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.

But Pyongyang would have gone beyond words, possibly damaging its own weak finances, if it had blocked South Koreans from getting in and out of the Kaesong industrial plant, which produced $470 million worth of goods last year.

South Korean managers at the plant reported no signs of trouble Thursday.

Analysts see a full-blown North Korean attack as extremely unlikely, though there are fears of a more localized conflict, such as a naval skirmish in disputed Yellow Sea waters. Such naval clashes have happened three times since 1999.

The Kaesong plant, just across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that separates the Koreas, normally relies on a military hotline for the governments to coordinate the movement of goods and South Korean workers.

Without the hotline, the governments, which lack diplomatic relations, used middlemen. North Korea verbally approved the crossing Thursday of hundreds of South Koreans by telling South Koreans at a management office at the Kaesong factory. Those South Koreans then called officials in South Korea.

Both governments prohibit direct contact with citizens on the other side, but Kaesong has separate telephone lines that allow South Korean managers there to communicate with people in South Korea.

Factory managers at Kaesong reached by The Associated Press by telephone at the factory said the overall mood there is normal.

"Tension rises almost every year when it's time for the U.S.-South Korean drills to take place, but as soon as those drills end, things quickly return to normal," Sung Hyun-sang said in Seoul, a day after returning from Kaesong. He is president of Mansun Corporation, an apparel manufacturer that employs 1,400 North Korean workers and regularly stations 12 South Koreans at Kaesong.

"I think and hope that this time won't be different," Sung said.

Technically, the divided Korean Peninsula remains in a state of war. North Korea last shut down communications at Kaesong four years ago, and that time some workers were temporarily stranded.

North Korea could be trying to stoke worries that the hotline shutdown could mean that a military provocation could come any time without notice.

South Korea urged the North to quickly restore the hotline, and the U.S. State Department said the shutdown was unconstructive.

North Korea's latest threats are seen as efforts to provoke the new government in Seoul, led by President Park Geun-hye, to change its policies toward Pyongyang. North Korea's moves at home to order troops into "combat readiness" also are seen as ways to build domestic unity as young leader Kim Jong Un, who took power after his father's death in December 2011, strengthens his military credentials.

The Kaesong complex is the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. Other rapprochement projects created during a previous era of detente stopped as tension rose in recent years.

At the border Thursday, a trio of uniformed South Korean soldiers stood at one side of a gate as white trucks rumbled through, carrying large pipes and containers to Kaesong. At Dorasan station, a South Korean border checkpoint, a green signboard hung above the trucks with the words "Kaesong" and "Pyongyang" written in English and Korean.

The stalled hotline, which consists of two telephone lines, two fax lines and two lines that can be used for both telephone and fax, was virtually the last remaining direct link between the rival Koreas.

North Korea in recent weeks cut other phone and fax hotlines with South Korea's Red Cross and with the American-led U.N. Command at the border. Three other telephone hotlines used only to exchange information about air traffic were still operating normally Thursday, according to South Korea's Air Traffic Center.

In 2010, ties between the rivals reached one of their lowest points in decades after North Korea's artillery bombardment of a South Korean island and a South Korean warship sinking blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack. A total of 50 South Koreans died.

There is still danger of a confrontation or clash. Kim Jong Un may be more willing to take risks than his father, the late Kim Jong Il, said Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in South Korea.

Although North Korea has vowed nuclear strikes on the U.S., analysts outside the country have seen no proof that North Korean scientists have yet mastered the technology needed to build a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.

President Park so far has outlined a policy that looks to re-engage North Korea, stressing the need for greater trust while saying Pyongyang will "pay the price" for any provocation. Last week she approved a shipment of anti-tuberculosis medicine to the North.

Since 2004, the Kaesong factories have operated with South Korean money and know-how, with North Korean factory workers managed by South Koreans.

Inter-Korean trade, which includes a small amount of humanitarian aid sent to the North and components and raw materials sent to Kaesong complex to build finished products, amounted to nearly $2 billion in 2012, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.

___

Associated Press writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this report.

View the original article here

SKorea, US begin drills as NKorea threatens war

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and the United States began annual military drills Monday despite North Korean threats to respond by voiding the armistice that ended the Korean War and launching a nuclear attack on the U.S.

After the start of the drills, South Korean officials said their northern counterparts didn't answer two calls on a hotline between the sides, apparently following through on an earlier vow to cut the communication channel because of the drills.

Pyongyang has launched a bombast-filled propaganda campaign against the drills, which involve 10,000 South Korean and about 3,000 American troops, and last week's U.N. vote to impose new sanctions over the North's Feb. 12 nuclear test. Analysts believe that much of that campaign is meant to shore up loyalty among citizens and the military for North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang isn't believed to be able to build a warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, and the North's military has repeatedly vowed in the past to scrap the 1953 armistice. North Korea wants a formal peace treaty, security guarantees and other concessions, as well as the removal of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

Still, South Korean and U.S. officials have been closely monitoring Pyongyang's actions and parsing the torrent of recent rhetoric from the North, which has been more warlike than usual.

North Korea regularly claims South Korea-U.S. drills are a preparation for invasion, but Pyongyang has signaled more worry about the drills that began Monday. The drills follow U.N. sanctions that the North says are the result of U.S. hostility aimed at toppling its political system.

North Korea has also warned South Korea of a nuclear war on the divided peninsula and said it was cancelling nonaggression pacts.

Under newly inaugurated President Park Geun-hye, South Korea's Defense Ministry, which often brushes off North Korean threats, has looked to send a message of strength in response to the latest threats. The ministry warned Friday that the North's government would "evaporate from the face of the Earth" if it ever used a nuclear weapon. The White House also said the U.S. is fully capable of defending itself against a North Korean ballistic attack.

North Korea has said the U.S. mainland is within the range of its long-range missiles, and an army general told a Pyongyang rally last week that the military is ready to fire a long-range nuclear-armed missile to turn Washington into a "sea of fire."

While outside scientists are still trying to determine specifics, the North's rocket test in December and third atomic bomb test last month may have pushed the country a step closer to acquiring the ability to hit the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction. Analysts, however, say Pyongyang is still years away from acquiring the smaller, lighter nuclear warheads needed for a credible nuclear missile program.

But there are still worries about a smaller conflict. North Korea has a variety of missiles and other weapons capable of striking South Korea. In 2010, North Korea shelled a South Korean island and allegedly torpedoed a South Korean warship, killing a total of 50 South Koreans.

Both incidents occurred near the disputed western sea boundary, a recurring flashpoint between the Koreas that has seen three other bloody naval skirmishes since 1999.

Kim Jong Un visited two islands just north of the sea boundary last week and ordered troops there to open fire immediately if a single enemy shell is fired on North Korean waters. Kim was also quoted as saying his military is fully ready to fight an "all-out war" and that he will order a "just, great advance for national unification" if the enemy makes even a slight provocation, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

Despite the threats, South Korea and the U.S. began the 11-day war games as scheduled Monday. The allies have repeatedly said the drills and other joint exercises are defensive in nature and they have no intention of attacking the North.

A U.S. military statement said the exercise is not related to current events on the Korean Peninsula.

The drills are part of larger war games that began March 1 and are set to go on for two months.

U.S. troops in South Korea are meant to prevent North Korean aggression, U.S. and South Korean officials say, and are a legacy of the Korean War, which ended with the peace treaty that leaves the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.

___

Associated Press writer Foster Klug contributed to this report from Seoul.

View the original article here