KCNA Commentary Blasts U.S. Wrong Policy on Anti-Personnel Mines

 Pyongyang, July 9 (KCNA) -- The U.S. biased policy on the production and possession of anti-personnel mines was disclosed during the recent conference to review the implementation of the convention on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines (Ottawa Treaty) held in Mozambique.
    A spokesperson for the National Security Council of the White House in a statement clarified that the U.S. government would no longer produce anti-personnel mines and purchase them but, timed to coincide with this, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department blustered the announcement of a halt to using those mines would not affect the defense of the Korean peninsula.
    This outpouring cannot but be called into question as it is revelation of the U.S. sinister scenario to keep south Korea under its occupation as its bridgehead for carrying out its strategy for dominating Asia-Pacific.
    The convention, which calls for the comprehensive prohibition of the production and use of anti-personnel mines, took effect on March 1, 1999 but the Korean peninsula is left outside the convention though its population is threatened with a great number of mines.
    The U.S. stockpiled 70 percent of its anti-personnel mines in south Korea and the south Korean puppet army possesses at least two million non-self-blasting mines. The number of the mines laid there is estimated to be a million.
    The U.S., the world's largest anti-personnel mine exporter, declared it was not willing to clear the peninsula of the mines which are meant to protect the lives of U.S. soldiers the moment a war breaks out there, making the peninsula an exception under the pretext of the non-existent "threat" from the DPRK.
    It was reported that more than one hundred million anti-personnel mines were laid all over the world. As many as 26 000 people fall victim to those mines every year. 83 percent of them are said to be civilians. Thrown into a tight corner by the international community's criticism, the U.S. declared that it would prohibit the use of all mines till 2010. But it said it would except the peninsula under the south Korea-U.S. "mutual defense treaty".
    The number of the victims of those mines is on the steady increase in south Korea as it is outside the convention.
    Huge U.S. forces are deployed in south Korea, Japan and other parts of Asia-Pacific. U.S. strategic nuclear striking means including nukes are massed there, and taskforce units are deployed there.
    The U.S. aggressor forces in south Korea have recently been reinforced sharply.
    The number of the U.S. forces in south Korea has increased as many as 11 000 as compared with September 2009, according to the "2012 report on the military base structure" released by the U.S. Defense Department.
    Such ultra-modern military hardware as new type heavy tanks M1-A2 Abrams, MRAPs and F-16s were additionally deployed in the U.S. forces in south Korea.
    Such massive reinforcement of the U.S. forces in south Korea further escalates the tensions in the region and sparks the arms race and increases the danger of a war.
    If peace is to settle on the peninsula, the U.S. must pull out of south Korea at once, taking with it all its military personnel and destructive military hardware. -0-