Gates: North Korea's Tests Not A Crisis, Require No Added Troops

May 29, 2009 6:08 a.m. EST

Topics: World, United States, Politics

Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Defense Sec. Robert Gates on Thursday said North Korea's nuclear test and missile launches this week provocations but did not constitute a crisis that required additional troops in the Korean Peninsula.

Speaking to reporters en route to security conference in Singapore, Gates is quoted by the Stars and Stripes as saying, "I don't believe that anybody in the administration thinks there is a crisis. What we do have, though, are two new developments that are very provocative, that are aggressive, accompanied by very aggressive rhetoric."

The secretary added there was no need to increase troops in the area. His comments comes after South Korean troops and the U.S. Combined Forces Command raised their alert level in the Korean Peninsula from three to two.

Gates will be joined by Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg at the two-day conference, called the Shangri-La Dialogue.

The discussions coincide with meetings between representatives of members of the United Nations Security Council in New York about a new resolution on North Korea. Steinberg also holds bilateral talks in Tokyo over the weekend.

North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles from its eastern coast on Tuesday. The communist nation had conducted its second nuclear test a day earlier, prompting condemnation from the U.N. Security Council and two statements from U.S. President Barack Obama.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency said the nuclear test was "part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way," and "will contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and the region around it."

On Wednesday, North Korea declared that it was ending the 1953 ceasefire agreement ratified after Korean War, saying South Korea's decision to fully participate in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) was "a declaration of war."

The PSI is a multilateral effort that began under the Bush administration in 2003. It seeks to stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It has 15 major members, including Japan, France, Germany and Russia.

South Korea officially joined the PSI on Tuesday.

In a statement issued through the KCNA, it said, "The DPRK will deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow, no matter from which place, at any attempt to stop, check and inspect its vessels, regarding it as a violation of its inviolable sovereignty and territory and a grave provocation to it."

"Second, the DPRK will take such a practical counter-action as in the wartime now that the south Korean authorities declared a war in wanton violation of its dignity and sovereignty by fully participating in the PSI."

South Korea and U.S. forces in the peninsula, in response, raised their alert level. The last time the alert was raised to level two was in October 2006, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test.

U.S. forces have been serving in South Korea since the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. They currently number at around 28,000.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday issued tough rhetoric and reiterated Washington's support for South Korea.

"North Korea has made a choice," she said. "It has chosen to violate the specific language of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. It has ignored the international community. It has abrogated the obligations it entered into through the Six-Party Talks. And it continues to act in a provocative and belligerent manner toward its neighbors. There are consequences to such actions."

China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States are part of negotiations, called six-party talks, with North Korea about nuclear disarmament.

North Korea's tests this week followed a rocket launch in April. The rocket launch had prompted condemnation from the Security Council, to which North Korea responded by banning inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at its reprocessing plant in Yongbyon. The Yongbyon plant was verified in 2007 to be in shutdown status but has been reactivated.

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