N. Korea - U.S. force isn't option in nuclear standoff

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea, watching the war in Iraq, warned on Sunday that force will not solve its nuclear standoff with the United States.

Pyongyang accuses Washington of planning to attack the communist country, and fears it may be next after Iraq. Dozens of U.S. and South Korean tanks engaged in a simulated battle Sunday near the inter-Korean border.

President Bush and other U.S. officials have said they want to resolve the dispute over North Korea's nuclear programs diplomatically. But they have also said that a military option is still on the table.

"Trying to resolve the nuclear issue through military measures is an anachronistic fantasy," said North Korea's state-run Radio Pyongyang. "The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula can never be resolved if the United States continues its policy to stifle North Korea."

The radio report, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, reiterated Pyongyang's key demand for U.S.-North Korea talks and a nonaggression treaty with Washington.

Washington has rejected those demands, saying it wants to discuss the issue at a multilateral setting that includes Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, 10 U.S. M-1 tanks and 22 South Korean K-1 tanks fired blanks at each other, while some 150 U.S. troops played defense against 650 South Korean attackers in a war drill 31 miles south of the tense inter-Korean border. The "battle" came as part of the annual Foal Eagle exercise.

Pyongyang has condemned the monthlong drills as war preparations amid the nuclear crisis.

The standoff flared in October, when Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly said Pyongyang admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact that defused a similar crisis.

North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused Kelly on Sunday of "floating misinformation."

"The plot hatched by him ... has brought about such serious consequence as sparking the second nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula and pushing the hostile relations between (North Korea) and the U.S. to the worse phase," Rodong said in a report carried by the North's KCNA news agency.

With the United States focused on Iraq, experts fear North Korea might use the opportunity to test a long-range missile or reprocess spent nuclear fuel to make atomic bombs. That would be viewed as an attempt to force Washington into direct negotiations.