The latest Thu May 20, 2004 10:14 PM ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - The planned withdrawal of 3,600 U.S. troops from South Korea is part of a ploy to attack North Korea rather than a welcome force reduction, a North Korean diplomat was quoted on Friday as saying in an interview.
The United States is reviewing a possible cut in its military presence in South Korea, where it has 37,500 troops and heavy firepower and surveillance technology to deter the North. It is one of the heaviest U.S. force concentrations outside Iraq.
"The purpose of the announced realignment is to begin the second Korean War by launching a preemptive strike against the North, according to experts," Han Song-ryol, deputy North Korean ambassador at the United Nations, was quoting as saying by the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.
The comments follow an announcement this week that the United States will pull out a tenth of its troops stationed in South Korea to redeploy to Iraq.
South Korean officials said the move was part of the U.S. global troop alignment, which also involves a possible cut in U.S. military in the South.
Such a cut would be replaced by enhanced capabilities and not lower the combined U.S. and South Korean defense against the communist North, the two countries have said.
Han said the North Korean military had been put "on higher alert" and was closely watching developments. The North has long called for all U.S. troops to leave South Korea.
For the second time in two weeks, Han also called for a peace treaty involving the two Koreas and the United States.
"The peace treaty should be signed and guaranteed by the parties with a military presence on the Korean Peninsula," Han was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
The inclusion of South Korea is a departure from Pyongyang's insistence that such a treaty to replace the armistice signed in 1953 by the North, the United States and China is valid only with those three combatants as signatories.
The two Koreas are technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.
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