SEOUL, Mar 6 (AP): South Korea told the North Friday to immediately withdraw a threat it made against the South's commercial airliners that has forced them to stop flying near the airspace of the communist neighbour.
North Korea, which is preparing to test its longest-range Taepodong-2 missile, said Thursday it could not guarantee the safety of the South's commercial flights off the east coast of the peninsula, where the missile base is located.
It linked the warning to next week's joint US-South Korea military drills, which start Monday and have been held for years without major incident. The prickly North regularly criticises them as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war.
"Threatening civilian airliners' normal operations under international aviation regulations is not only against the international rules but is an act against humanity," South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said.
"The government urges the North to immediately withdraw the military threat against civilian airliners," Kim said.
Kim said the South's Korean Air and Asiana Airlines had been immediately notified of the threat following the North's announcement. The airliners responded by diverting flights that approach the country from the east, he said.
Kim said about 33 daily flights approached the South from the east with about 15 of them by South Korean airliners.
Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Air China said they had no plans to alter their flight paths.
The area would likely be in the flight path of the missile, which spy satellites indicate is still in an assembly facility. It takes North Korea at least a week to prepare the missile for flight after setting it vertically and moving to a launch pad, experts have said.
North Korean generals met the US-led United Nations command Friday for about 45 minutes of military talks at the Panmunjom truce village in the demilitarised zone, the UN command said.
The UN delegation, that included officers from the United States, South Korea, Britain and New Zealand, urged North Korea not to take any provocative actions and criticised the threat made to commercial aircraft, it said in a news release.
The UN command told the North that the threat "was entirely inappropriate, had raised concern in the international aviation community and should be retracted immediately," it said.
The two sides had their first such meeting in about seven years Monday and the North, which requested the talks, complained about US military moves near the border and live-fire joint training, South Korean officials said.
Separately, the United States has sent Stephen Bosworth, its new special envoy for North Korea, to the region this week for talks on halting any moves by Pyongyang viewed as provocative and coaxing the country back into faltering nuclear disarmament talks. Bosworth will visit Seoul at the weekend.
