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DPRK calls for U.S. pullout from peninsula

SINGAPORE: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday reaffirmed its demand that the United States withdraw its military forces from the southern part of the divided Korean peninsula.

The renewed call for an end to the U.S. military presence in the Republic of Korea (RoK), the southern half of the peninsula, acquired unusual importance in the evolving context of the DPRK’s de-nuclearisation.

While the DPRK made no formal statement, the New Year’s Day comments on the current situation on the Korean peninsula were carried by state news agency.

A common editorial, published by the official organs of the ruling party as also the military establishment and youth militia, made no mention of the end-of-2007 deadline for a full declaration of the DPRK’s nuclear-weapons capabilities. Pyongyang, which agreed to give such a statement under a relevant six-party accord of last October, did not do so.

These comments, centred on the “hostile” attitude of the U.S. towards the future of the DPRK, commended its military-first or “Songun” policy. “We should constantly increase the military strength of the Republic by holding fast to the Party’s Songun-based revolutionary line,” it was said.

The “pro-U.S. sycophancy” that could hinder the reunification of the two Koreas “should not be tolerated,” it was emphasised. This line was seen by observers in Seoul as a thinly-veiled attack on the RoK’s President-elect, Lee Myung-bak, known to be a “hawk” on ties with the DPRK.

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