SEOUL: North Korea slammed on Wednesday remarks by the top American military official in South Korea comparing his host nation to \u201cthe dagger in the heart of Asia,\u201d saying it reflected Washington\u2019s strategy to contain China.<\/p>\n
General Xavier Brunson made the comments in an interview as speculation builds that Washington may seek to expand the US Forces Korea (USFK) role in countering China\u2019s regional influence.<\/p>\n
About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea to help guard against the nuclear-armed North.<\/p>\n
The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published commentary by analyst Kim Myong Chol who said Brunson\u2019s remarks showed the US as \u201cthe chieftain of harassing peace and the world\u2019s worst war empire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments reflected how Washington intended to use South Korea \u201cas an important geopolitical instrument to realize its regional strategy aimed at containing China,\u201d said Kim, who is based in Japan and considered an unofficial overseas spokesman for North Korea.<\/p>\n
China has for decades been Pyongyang\u2019s main trading partner and a key source of diplomatic and economic backing.<\/p>\n
Seoul\u2019s presidential office said at the weekend that it was aware of Brunson\u2019s remarks and has been \u201cmaintaining communication at various levels regarding all relevant issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local media outlets including News1 and JTBC reported that Seoul has raised concerns with the United States.<\/p>\n
USFK commander Brunson said in the interview, \u201cWhen (the Chinese) look out from the east coast of China, what they see is there\u2019s Korea, the dagger in the heart of Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brunson also compared Japan to a \u201cshield that\u2019s sort of a backstop\u201d against China\u2019s regional ambitions, according to a transcript posted by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College.<\/p>\n
Beijing\u2019s embassy in Seoul last week condemned the remarks as having \u201ctruly crossed the line\u201d and \u201crife with hostility and aggression toward China,\u201d asking whether they were authorized by Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: North Korea slammed on Wednesday remarks by the top American military official in South Korea comparing his host nation to \u201cthe dagger in the heart of Asia,\u201d saying it reflected Washington\u2019s strategy to contain China. General Xavier Brunson made the comments in an interview as speculation builds that Washington may seek to expand the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98523,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98507\/revisions\/98523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}