N. Korea Wants U.S. Out of South

North Korea urged the United Nations on Tuesday to dissolve the U.N. Command on the tense peninsula and press for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.

In a rare letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, North Korea’s representative at the Korean War truce village, Panmunjom, called on the United Nations to dissolve its 50-year-old command.

“It is our view that a war in Korea is almost unavoidable as long as the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK goes on,” said the 1,100-word letter, which the official KCNA news agency said was written by Col. Gen. Ri Chan Bok. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Ri is the long-serving North Korean representative at Panmunjom, which lies in the demilitarized zone that has separated capitalist South Korea from the communist North since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea remains technically at war with the U.S.-led U.N. forces in the South because the conflict ended in an armed truce that has not been replaced by a peace treaty.

At the U.N. headquarters, spokesman Farhan Haq said, “The secretary-general is aware of the letter, but I don’t think we’ve formally received it.

“The U.N. Command, despite its name, is not a U.N. peacekeeping force,” the spokesman said. “It’s a U.S.-led force, so it’s something to take up with the U.S.”

Haq added that Annan was determined to solve disputes regarding North Korea -- especially about its nuclear program -- diplomatically.

The letter was dated July 22 and published Tuesday, the 51st anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. The U.S. military in Seoul had no immediate comment.

Ri’s letter reiterated North Korean war threats and demands for a U.S. pullout and voiced alarm at recent American moves to upgrade military readiness while reducing troop levels.

The United States announced last month that it planned to withdraw a third of its 37,000 troops from South Korea as part of a long-term global force realignment.

The U.S. military also plans to move deployed troops away from the border with the North.

The Pentagon had said last year that it would spend $11 billion on advanced weaponry, which would assuage South Korean concerns that the troop changes would weaken defenses against the North’s 1.1-million-strong army.

“Such massive arms buildup of the U.S. prompted the KPA side to judge that the U.S. preparations for a preemptive attack on the DPRK have reached their height,” Ri wrote, repeating a mantra of North Korea and its Korean People’s Army.

“A preemptive attack in such relations of belligerency as those between the two countries cannot be a monopoly of the U.S.,” he wrote.

He said a preemptive attack by the North would be an “effective defense to smash the enemy’s attempt to attack.”

North Korea does not acknowledge that it invaded the South in June 1950 to start the war.

The letter was disclosed as more than 200 North Korean refugees flew to South Korea from an unnamed third country. It was the largest group of defectors to arrive from the poverty- and hunger-stricken North.

About 200 more are expected to arrive in the coming days.