North Korea accuses South and US of making up spy drone report

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/north-korea-south-us-spy-drone-report

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North Korea has accused the US and South Korea of fabricating the results of an investigation that concluded Pyongyang had sent surveillance drones to spy on key South Korean installations in March.

A spokesman for North Korea's military attacked the US for what it said was a blindly backed confrontational conspiracy devised by the government of South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, whom it called a "political prostitute".

"If Washington pays heed only to what its stooges trumpet, it is bound to be accused of being a senile grandfather trying to stop a child from crying," the unnamed spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

In a rare direct attack on the North Korean regime, the South Korean ministry of defence spokesman Kim Min-seok said the statement was "deeply regrettable" and that Pyongyang regularly lied so deserved to be discredited.

"North Korea isn't a real country is it? It doesn't have human rights or freedom. It exists solely to prop up a single person," Kim said at a briefing in Seoul.

"It is an unreal country that constantly lies and uses historically backward-looking rhetoric. That's why it should cease to exist," Kim said, using uncharacteristically aggressive language.

North and South Korea are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The North Korean statement was the latest in a recent series of written attacks on the South Korean president, whom it has previously likened to a "comfort woman", or sex slave.

In April, North Korea described Barack Obama as Park's "pimp", and in an article this month it called the US president a "wicked black monkey".

South Korean and US officials jointly examined three small drones that were recovered from three different locations near the Korean border over a two-week period starting in late March. The second was discovered soon after a three-hour artillery barrage between North and South Korea in waters near a disputed maritime border.

In April, North Korea proposed a joint investigation into the crashed drones with the South, but Seoul rejected the proposal.

North Korea said in the statement that the investigation with the US was a charade, designed to divert public criticism of the South Korean government's handling of the Sewol ferry tragedy. Park's government has faced continued criticism for its handling of the disaster from the victims' families, many of whom believe a swifter initial response could have saved more lives.

North Korea renewed its threat on Saturday to conduct a nuclear test amid heightened concern that it may set off an atomic device for the fourth time on the path to building a nuclear arsenal.

North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the country was justified in using all available means at its disposal to counter aggressive challenges by the US and South Korea aimed at stifling its sovereignty.