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U.S. wary of N. Korean military readiness

'This cannot be a one-way street,' Cohen warns

In this story: Report: Peninsula remains dangerous N. Koreans learned from Gulf War South faces a challenge RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

TOKYO, Japan -- North Korea heightened its military readiness this year even as it improved relations with South Korea and sought economic aid, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said Friday.

Cohen, on the last leg of a six-nation Asian trip, said more economic support for North Korea will not be forthcoming from South Korea, Japan and the United States unless Pyongyang reduces the military threat it poses.

"This cannot be a one-way street," Cohen said. "The North cannot take the position that the only basis for discussion will be whether or not economic aid continues to flow north so that it can continue to build its economy without some corresponding reduction in military tension."

MESSAGE BOARD North and South Korea

Cohen said North Korea should reduce the size of its forward-deployed forces near the demilitarized zone, end its long-range missile production program and give up its chemical and biological weapons.

Report: Peninsula remains dangerous

Cohen's comments on heightened North Korean military readiness echoed a Pentagon report sent to Congress.

The report concludes that, despite the June summit between the leaders of North and South Korea , "the Korean peninsula remains a dangerous theater."

"The North Koreans have not in any way diminished their military capability," Cohen said during a news conference. "In fact they have intensified it. They are training harder this past year than years previously, so they have increased their state of readiness. They have more forward-deployed artillery pieces than ever before."

CNN learned Friday that the 16-page report to Congress cites an ambitious program to improve North Korean ground forces, including "the deployment of large numbers of long-range 240mm multiple rocket launcher systems and 170mm self-propelled guns to hardened sites located near the demilitarized zone."

Other force improvements cited by the report include "emplacement of anti-tank barriers in the forward area, establishment of combat positions along major routes between Pyongyang and the Demilitarized Zone, repositioning of key units, beefing up of coastal defense forces in the forward area, construction of missile support facilities, preparations for extended range missile testing, and procurement of fighter aircraft."

N.Koreans learned from Gulf War

The U.S. report concluded that the North Koreans learned lessons from the Persian Gulf War, and more recent military events in Yugoslavia. Taking a page out of the tactics employed by the Serbs, the North Koreans "have modified key facility defenses, dispersed forces, and improved an already impressive camouflage, concealment, and deception effort."

The U.S. said the North Korean military was engaged in extremely high levels of military training last summer and fall, and that training in this year "may well be headed toward near record levels."

Production of limited numbers of military equipment, to include missiles, aircraft, submarines, and artillery systems also continues.

The Pentagon report noted that while North Korea agreed to a moratorium in late 1999 on future missile test firings while it continued talks with the United States, its ballistic missile program "remains a top priority."

Pyongyang, according to the report, is "one of the world's largest missile proliferators," selling its "missiles and technology to anyone with hard currency."

South faces a challenge

In both the speech and at his news conference, Cohen stressed that the United States would continue to maintain its 37,000 troops in South Korea and 100,000 troops in the Asia-Pacific region.

The main reason that the economically shattered North responded positively to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "olive branch of peace" was because Kim held a sword in the other hand in the form of its strong U.S. military alliance, he said.

But he conceded that the democratic South faced heavy internal pressure from its people to roll forward quickly with North-South detente.

"It's a challenge for the South Korean government on how they are going to manage this," Cohen said.

"There is going to be a lot more pressure on the South because you have a free press and you have a people who are emotionally committed" to better ties with the North in the wake of the historic June meeting between South Korea's Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

The defense ministers of North and South Korea will meet next week for the first time since the Korean War. Plans are also under way to open a rail line between North and South.

The Korean peninsula was divided into communist North Korea and pro-Western South Korea in 1945. Their 1950-1953 war ended only with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

CNN Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre and Reuters contributed to this report.

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U.S. State Department
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)
Korean Information Service
South Korean government
North Korea: Politics and Government
North Korea
UniKorea
Prime Minister's Office (Japan)

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