N. Korea sends letter to UN to call for end of US military presence in S. Korea

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) — North Korea has sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council, denouncing the U.S. military’s presence in South Korea for destabilizing the divided Korean Peninsula and demanding its withdrawal, according to the United Nations.

Amb. Ja Song-nam, chief of North Korea’s mission to the U.N., sent the letter last Tuesday, along with a statement that Pyongyang’s foreign ministry issued the previous day on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of America’s military presence in South Korea.

Ja asked for the letter and the statement to be circulated as a Security Council document.

In the statement, the North claimed that the joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea have become a “main factor of aggravating confrontation and distrust” not only between the North and the U.S. but also between the two Koreas.

“The U.S. has sought a pretext for arms buildup, pursuant to its ‘strategy of rebalancing forces’ in the Asia-Pacific to dominate the world. That is why it has periodically staged provocative military actions to amp up tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” the statement in English said.

“If the United States does not withdraw its armed forces from South Korea and continues to wage provocative military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), it may lead to another incident of unknown origin that could trigger an armed conflict, for which the United States will be held fully and seriously accountable,” it said.

About 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea to deter aggression from the North, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, which means the divided peninsula is still technically at war.