March 5, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 1, 1424

SEOUL, March 4: The crisis on the Korean peninsula deepened on Tuesday after North Korean fighter jets faced off with a US spy plane ahead of US-South Korean military exercises aimed at repelling a Communist attack.

The air confrontation on Sunday was the most serious military incident since the nuclear crisis between the two Cold War rivals erupted four months ago.

Analysts said the escalating tensions reflected desperation in North Korea, which has yet to find an exit from the four-month-old crisis over its suspected nuclear weapons programmes.

The Pentagon said four North Korean MiG jets intercepted a US RC-135 surveillance plane and illuminated the US aircraft with radar weapons sights in international airspace over the Sea of Japan on March 2.

Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Jeff Davis said the North Korean MiG-29s came within 15 metres of the American jet and tailed the lumbering four-engined US plane for 22 minutes.

The US plane returned to its base in Japan without damage, but a State Department official blasted North Korea for a “provocative” act and said a formal protest was under consideration.

Pyongyang, which did not immediately respond to the United States allegations, accused Washington late Tuesday of “spreading misinformation” that the communist country sought rewards from the US for the nuclear standoff.

“Such attempt is intended to avoid the DPRK (North Korea)’s proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty through DPRK-US direct dialogue and negotiations, the only basic solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula,” Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

The latest spat erupted as US and South Korean forces began annual wargames on Tuesday.

This year’s exercise, codenamed RSOI/FE 03, will be staged throughout South Korea until April 2, backed by a US aircraft carrier to be deployed near the Korean peninsula.

Thousands of US soldiers have already been out near the heavily armed inter-Korean border for a warm-up mock battle ahead of the joint exercise.

Seoul and Washington have refused to disclose the number of soldiers mobilized for the exercises, which they said are designed to improve the ability of allied forces to defend South Korea against an invasion by North Korea.

Last year, the exercises involved hundreds of thousands of South Korean and US troops including some 37,000 American soldiers based here and reinforcements from abroad.

North Korea has ratcheted up tensions since Washington’s announcement in October that North Korea had pursued nuclear weapons research after signing a 1994 accord freezing its atomic programme.

Last week US officials said North Korea had restarted a five-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which had been frozen under the deal because of its capability of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

The State Department warned North Korea on Monday not to reprocess spent fuel that US officials believe could be used to make five or six nuclear bombs by the middle of the year.—AFP