S. Korea Wants Closer U.S Ties

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday called for a stronger alliance with the United States, a day after North Korea test-fired a cruise missile into the sea.

Meanwhile, North Korea warned of a "catastrophic situation" if the United States chooses a military option and refuses to hold direct talks to end the nuclear standoff with Pyongyang.

"The staunch Korea-U.S. combined defense arrangement is greatly contributing to our national security," Roh said in a speech at the Korean Military Academy. "The solid (South Korea)-U.S. alliance should be maintained even more so."

Roh's statement had extra significance because North Korea has urged the South to abandon Washington and form a pan-peninsular alliance, and also because a younger Roh once supported the dismissal of the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said American troops stationed near the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea could be moved farther down from the heavily defended area, shifted to other countries in the region or brought home.

Roh urged South Koreans not to worry about the redeployment plan, calling it "nothing new at all." He said the two allies will consult closely with each other on reconfiguring the U.S. military presence.

Tensions over North Korea's nuclear program intensified Monday when the communist state test-fired a second cruise missile off its east coast in two weeks.

Roh repeated his emphasis on the importance of resolving the nuclear dispute through dialogue.

"Without peace, everything we do will be like building a castle in the sand," Roh said. "We cannot hope to dream about prosperity in a land of Cold War and tension."

North Korea has repeatedly said it wants to talk only with the United States. But Washington prefers to settle the dispute through a multilateral channel, saying North Korea's nuclear programs threaten not just American interests but also those of Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.

"If the U.S. turns to a military option in the end, persistently turning down the (North's) principled proposal for direct talks, it will lead to a catastrophic situation," North Korea's state-run Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary Tuesday.

As the dispute dragged on, North Korea has made moves apparently aimed at raising tension and pressuring Washington into negotiations.

North Korea fired a short-range missile off its east coast on the eve of Roh's Feb. 25 inauguration.

Early this month, North Korean fighters intercepted a U.S. surveillance plane in international airspace off the North's east coast.

The nuclear dispute flared in October, when U.S. officials said Pyongyang admitted having a covert nuclear program in violation of a 1994 deal. Washington and its allies suspended fuel shipments; the North retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restarting a nuclear reactor.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has referred the case to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions. However, the United States has not proposed new sanctions, and North Korea has threatened to treat any new restrictions as acts of war.

North Korea — which has never formally ended the Korean War — claims the 1994 deal was invalidated when the United States failed to recognize it and was slow to build civilian nuclear power plants.

The United States has alleged that North Korea keeps raising the stakes to drum up more aid. Hunger is a perennial problem in the country, and UNICEF Tuesday warned that it needs emergency assistance to provide enough medicines for its clinics there.

The U.S. also feels North Korea is capitalizing on the current crisis in Iraq to squeeze the United States at a time when, some feel, it is busy with a war against Saddam Hussein and does not want to take on North Korea's formidable armed forces.

But the Pentagon, despite dropping its "two-war" doctrine, insists it could take on North Korea if necessary. Several heavy bombers moved closer to the Koreas to provide a possible military option.

Pyongyang, however, contends that the crisis was triggered by several elements of White House foreign policy: the suspension of talks when President Bush took office, the inclusion of North Korea in an "axis of evil," a new doctrine emphasizing preemptive force to destroy potential threats, and a revised nuclear policy stating that North Korea is one of several countries where it is possible the United States might have to contemplate using nuclear weapons under certain circumstances.