Report says N. Korea still
leery of U.S. intentionsBy
Jeremy Kirk
Stars and Stripes
SEOUL — North Korean officials still believe the United States is intent on destroying the communist country, according to a bimonthly think tank report.
"The ultimate U.S. goal is to destroy the socialist (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)," a North Korean official said in a report released by the Center for Contemporary International Problems in Moscow and officials with the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. "Washington uses different methods to achieve this goal at a minimum cost."
While U.S. and North Korea relations have been relatively stable, officials in the North still think America is the only true "rogue state" in the world.
"America is the sole country that totally ignores the United Nations, international laws and the views of other states," said another North Korea official. "(The U.S. is) the sole country that constantly relies on violence to impose its will on others and to achieve its egotistic aims in disregard of world public opinion."
North Korea believes the United States wants to destroy the potential of Russia, the report says. According to the report, the expansion of NATO and the development of a missile defense system show the United States’ intention to dominate the world.
The United States is opposed to warming relations between North and South Korea, according to the report. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy — which advocates mutual cooperation — is at odds with the United States’ desire to "destroy socialism on Korean soil," the report said.
North Korea’s missile program frequently
has been cited as justification for a missile defense system. But North Korea argues the
missile defense progam is "just a poor excuse for deployment of a system that will
make Russia’s forces impotent."
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