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N. Korea 'rejecting DMZ authority'
SEOUL (CNN) -- The U.N. Command accused North Korea Monday of refusing to acknowledge the 50-year-old armistice agreement that established the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. North Korea added to the war of words on Monday, saying the United States' development of a missile shield was evidence of a plan to attack the communist state. The U.N earlier cited an incident last month in which North Korean troops took machine guns into the DMZ in violation of the agreement, which prohibits such weapons in the zone. The troops were accompanying construction workers building the new transportation corridor between the two Koreas. At a regular meeting in the DMZ on December 30, officers from the U.N. Command confronted officers from the North Korean People's Army (KPA) about the incident. "When presented with photographic proof of North Korea's repeated armistice violations," the U.N. Command said, "the KPA attempted to simply dismiss the issue as a matter outside the purview of the armistice." North Korea maintains that the armistice does not apply to the transportation corridor, which, when complete, will establish road and rail links through the DMZ. "This raises serious security concerns in the transportation corridor," said UNC Cmdr. Gen. Leon LaPorte. The violations, he said, set a dangerous precedent, and could lead to the breakdown of the protections of the DMZ. "It could undermine the armistice's most significant visible mechanism for maintaining a separation of opposing forces -- the DMZ," he said. Shield threatNorth Korea's state-run news agency KCNA placed the blame for the tensions between the two countries on the George W. Bush administration. "The Bush bellicose forces are starting the deployment of the MD [missile defense] to take military sanctions and strike against the DPRK under the pretext of its alleged 'progress made in acquiring nuclear capability' and 'missile threat,'" KCNA said. "This goes to clearly prove that the U.S. intends to launch military intervention against the DPRK on the plea of 'nuclear and missile threat' in a bid to settle the bilateral issue not by peaceful means but force." North Korea's armistice violation and the news release from the U.N. Command come at a time when tensions are rising over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Treaty withdrawalMonday, South Korea's semi-official Yonhap news agency reported the country plans to send an envoy to North Korea to try to persuade Pyongyang to give up the program. The visit may come as early as this month, Yonhap reported. Pyongyang has recently acknowledged resuming its nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement, and it has hinted it might withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States has demanded that North Korea end its nuclear weapons program. "If this situation continues, I believe the Korean peoples' security could be diminished by North Korea's continued refusal to discuss their most recent armistice violations with the [U.N. Command]," LaPorte said. "This refusal brings into question North Korea's commitment to comply with the armistice agreement," he said, "and is a direct challenge to the armistice agreement's authority to keep military forces separated in the DMZ." The DMZ was established in 1953 when an armistice was signed to end the fighting in the Korean War. Each side pulled back 2,000 meters from the last line of military contact, creating the zone. The armistice laid out specifics about the number of troops and kinds of weapons that could be in the DMZ. U.S. forces, through the United Nations Command, administer the DMZ from the south. -- CNN Correspondent Rebecca Mackinnon contributed to this report.
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