N. Korea Mocks Threat Of Invasion

North Korea, carefully watching the war in Iraq, said that trying to use military force to end the standoff over its nuclear programs would be an "anachronistic fantasy" and reiterated demands Sunday for talks with Washington.

The communist country also warned that ongoing military exercises in South Korea were preparations for a war, as dozens of U.S. and South Korean tanks engaged in a simulated battle Sunday near the inter-Korean border.

North Korea worries that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could be a precursor to U.S. military action on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials have said they want to resolve the dispute over North Korea's nuclear programs peacefully. But they have also said that a military option is still on the table.

North Korea accuses Washington of planning to attack the communist country, and fears it may be next after Iraq. Last year, Bush branded the two nations, along with Iran, as part of an "axis of evil."

"Trying to resolve the nuclear issue through military measures is an anachronistic fantasy," said North Korea's state-run Radio Pyongyang. "The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula can never be resolved if the United States continues its policy to stifle North Korea."

The radio report, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, reiterated Pyongyang's key demand for U.S.-North Korea talks and a nonaggression treaty with Washington.

Washington has so far rejected those demands, saying it wants to discuss the issue in a multilateral setting that includes Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, 10 U.S. M-1 tanks and 22 South Korean K-1 tanks fired blanks at each other, while some 150 U.S. troops played defense against 650 South Korean attackers in a war drill 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the tense inter-Korean border. The "force-on-force battle" came as part of the annual Foal Eagle exercise.

North Korea has condemned the monthlong drills as war preparations amid the nuclear crisis.

The standoff flared in October, when Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly said Pyongyang admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact that defused a similar crisis.

North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused Kelly on Sunday of "floating misinformation."

"The plot hatched by him ... has brought about such serious consequence as sparking the second nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula and pushing the hostile relations between (North Korea) and the U.S. to the worse phase," Rodong said in a report carried by the North's KCNA news agency.

In a separate KCNA dispatch, North Korea's Minju Joson newspaper criticized Seoul's decision to put its military on heightened alert as a "frantic anti-DPRK confrontation racket," using the initials of the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Seoul has said the decision was to guard against possible North Korean moves to spike tensions on the peninsula during the war in Iraq.

With the United States focused on Iraq, experts fear North Korea might use the opportunity to test a long-range missile or reprocess spent nuclear fuel to make atomic bombs. That would be viewed as an attempt to force Washington into direct negotiations.

On Saturday, North Korea canceled economic talks with South Korea scheduled for this week, accusing Seoul of raising tensions with the heightened alert. It also indicated it might suspend separate, more important Cabinet-level talks scheduled next month.

Returning from a visit to North Korea on Saturday, a U.N. envoy said in Beijing that North Korea was preparing for possible war with Washington. He said Pyongyang was concerned about Washington's intentions after Iraq.

"They are watching it (the war) very carefully and with deep concern, and questioning what this means in terms of the U.S. ultimate intentions toward them," said Maurice Strong, a Canadian aide to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

But Strong, who visited Pyongyang as part of U.N. efforts to mediate the nuclear crisis, said he saw no signs of military preparations or a "significant sense of general tension."