WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. FORCES FROM S. KOREA IS REQUIREMENT OF TIMES: DPRK FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN

Pyongyang, September 7 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK issued a statement Monday 70 years since the U.S. occupied south Korea. The U.S. has persisted in its reckless hostile moves to perpetuate Korea's division and stifle the DPRK contrary to the unanimous will of all Koreans aspiring after peace and reunification since it occupied south Korea, the statement said, and went on: Behind the Korean war and all armed conflicts and skirmishes that broke out on the Korean Peninsula for the past 70 years was the U.S. that has deployed huge forces in south Korea to stage provocative military actions. The U.S.-south Korea joint military drills have become a main factor of aggravating confrontation and distrust not only between the DPRK and the U.S. but also between the north and the south of Korea. The risky war games have entered an extremely reckless phase of putting into practice such scenario for surprise pre-emptive attack upon the DPRK as OPLAN 5015 opened to public shortly ago. The U.S. forces' presence in south Korea has become a pretext for the ceaseless north-targeted sober-rattling in south Korea. The U.S. has sought a pretext for arms build-up, pursuant to its "strategy of re balancing forces" in the Asia-Pacific to dominate the world. That is why it has periodically staged provocative military actions to ramp up tensions on the Korean Peninsula. As long as the U.S. has its huge forces in south Korea, seizing the prerogative of the supreme command of the south Korean army, the north-south relations are bound to be influenced by the U.S. As urged by the resolution made at the 30th session of the UN General Assembly, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from south Korea has become a requirement of the times, which brooks no further delay. As the agreement reached at the north-south high-level urgent contact showed that the north and the south are capable of tiding over the crisis and protecting peace in the spirit of By Our Nation Itself, such trite pretext of the U.S. that its forces' presence in south Korea "ensures stability on the Korean Peninsula" is no longer be workable.