PYONGYANG, North Korea, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- North Korea said Tuesday that the United States should withdraw its soldiers before handing over wartime operational control to South Korea.
The official newspaper of the North Korea Worker's Party also suggested that the United States plans to cede control in order to use South Korean forces as shock troops in an invasion of the north, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.
Yonhap reported that Don Oberdorfer, the head of the Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, does not believe that President Bush will send a special envoy to North Korea in an attempt to revive talks on its nuclear program. Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, had suggested sending the president's father, former President George H.W. Bush.
At the United Nations, Choe Su Yun, head of the North Korean delegation, suggested that the United States is trying to increase tensions between the two Koreas.
