DATE=10/26/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=KOREA / U-S MILITARY (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-255474
BYLINE=HYUN SUNG KHANG
DATELINE=SEOUL
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:

INTRO:  North Korea is denouncing the United States 
for beginning joint military exercises with South 
Korea, just one month after it seemed that relations 
between Washington and Pyongyang were improving. Hyun-
Sung Khang reports from the South Korean capital, 
Seoul.

TEXT:  The joint military exercise, called "Foal 
Eagle," is an annual event.  But what is also an 
annual event is the belligerent response from North 
Korea.

Pyongyang's foreign ministry spokesman, quoted by the 
country's central news agency, called this year's 
exercises "a perfidious act" by the United States.

Recalling an agreement reached earlier this month 
between North Korea and the United States, Pyongyang's 
spokesman says Washington is now "abandoning trust in 
its dialogue partner and stabbing him in the back."

The 11-day military exercise involves 500-thousand 
South Korean troops and 30-thousand U-S soldiers, 
backed by helicopters and tanks.  They take place just 
outside the capital, Seoul, which is just over 55 
kilometers from the border separating the two Koreas. 

The exercises include parachute operations and 
chemical-warfare simulations and will culminate in a 
simulated amphibious assault on the southeast port of 
Pohang, which houses a major naval port.

Pyongyang's strident reaction to the military 
exercises comes amid improved relations between the 
United States and the North.  In September, Washington 
announced a partial lifting of decade-old economic 
sanctions against the Stalinist state.  This was in 
response to North Korea's decision not to test-fire a 
long-range ballistic missile.

In another development Monday, North Korea transferred 
to U-S officials the remains of four American soldiers 
who died in the Korean War.  In the past, Pyongyang 
would turn over such remains to the United Nations. 

Defense analysts have dismissed Pyongyang's 
predictably bitter reaction to the military exercises.  
U-S officials say that the joint exercises, which 
began in 1961, are an effective deterrent to possible 
aggression by North Korea.   (Signed)

NEB/HSK/GC/WTW



26-Oct-1999 05:52 AM EDT (26-Oct-1999 0952 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.