Posted on 09/14/2003 9:17:36 AM PDT by Brian S
SEOUL, Sept 14 (AFP) - North Korea on Saturday condemned US-led exercises aimed at stemming the trade in weapons of mass destruction as a "blatant military provocation".
The United States, Japan, Australia and France took part in the simulated pursuit and boarding of a vessel carrying illicit weapons in the Coral Sea off Australia's east coast this weekend.
The manoeuvre has been interpreted as a veiled warning to North Korea, which is believed to make about a billion dollars a year in arms trading to prop up its collapsed economy.
"Such moves of the United States are blatant military provocations to the DPRK (North Korea) and they may push the DPRK-US relations to an explosive phase," the North's ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary Saturday.
The exercise "Pacific Protector" is the first in a series of 10 air, ground and sea drills planned by the 11-nation proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a US-led grouping set up earlier this year to stem the illicit trade in WMDs.
lim/th
US-attacks-NKorea
Do we have to do everything?
Probably protesting against the US and Aussie troops while waving white flags.
So? Those savages are so backwards, 80% of the country doesn't even have elctricity.
We really don't care what Kim says either. He says the same thing every day, only the subject of what the US is currently doing that he objects to occasionally changes.
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