Airlines stay clear of North Korea after threat

United Nations Command officials, left, talk with North Korean officials during their meeting at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, north of Seoul, Friday, March 6, 2009. Senior military officials from North Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command in South Korea opened talks at the border Friday, a day after the North threatened passenger planes flying near its airspace. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, Pool)

SEOUL, South Korea-South Korean and foreign airlines rerouted their flights away from North Korean airspace Friday after the North threatened passenger planes amid heightened tensions on the divided peninsula, officials said.The move-which will cost carriers thousands of dollars for each flight-comes after North Korea warned in its state-run media that it cannot guarantee security for South Korean civil airplanes flying near its airspace and accused the U.S. and South Korea of attempting to provoke a nuclear war with upcoming joint military drills.It did not say what kind of danger South Korean planes would face or whether the threat meant the North would shoot down aircraft.South Korea urged the North to retract the threat."The military threat against civil airplanes' normal flights is a violation of international norms and an inhumane act that cannot be justified under any circumstances," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon told reporters.Kim hinted that the warning may be intended to clear the airspace before a possible missile test by North Korea, but declined to elaborate. North Korea announced last week that it is preparing to send a communications satellite into space. Regional powers suspect it is actually planning to launch a long-range missile that is capable of reaching Alaska. In Tokyo, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, Stephen W. Bosworth, called the threat against South Korean planes "unacceptable." He also urged North Korea to refrain "from the provocation of firing a missile."He was to head to South Korea on Saturday.The United Nations Command, the U.S.-led body overseeing the 1953 armistice that ended the three-year Korean War, called the North's threat "entirely inappropriate."During a meeting Friday with North Korean generals, members of the command urged the North to retract the threat. North Korea rejected the demand, saying it made the decision to ban South Korean planes from flying near its airspace as a "self-defense measure" to fend off U.S. military threats, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.The North's chief delegate to the talks warned of "strong countermeasures" unless the United States calls off the joint military exercises with South Korea due to start Monday, KCNA said, without elaborating.
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
By KWANG-TAE KIM--Associated Press Writer

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