N. Korea would attack Japan in event of war: U.S. scholar+

WASHINGTON, June 17 Kyodo -
North Korea would attack Japan if another war with the reclusive country
erupted as a result of efforts to implement recently strengthened U.N.
sanctions against Pyongyang over its second nuclear test, a U.S. scholar said
Wednesday.

Selig Harrison, Asia Program director at the Washington-based Center for
International Policy, who visited North Korea in January, sounded the warning
during a House Foreign Affairs Committee subcommittee hearing on North Korea
policy.
''In the event of another war with North Korea resulting from efforts to
enforce the U.N. sanctions, it is Japan that North Korea would attack, in my
view, not South Korea,'' he said.
''Nationalistic younger generals with no experience of the outside world are
now in a strong position in the North Korean leadership'' in the wake of the
illness suffered by the country's leader Kim Jong Il last year that led to
''his reduced role in day-to-day management,'' he said.
Earlier this month, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution
to punish North Korea over its second nuclear test in late May, centering on
tougher financial sanctions and the stricter enforcement of North Korean cargo
inspections.
North Korea reacted with anger to the resolution, saying it would ''weaponize''
more plutonium, begin uranium enrichment and react militarily to blockades.
Harrison attributed North Korea's eagerness to attack Japan to the U.S.
military presence in Japan. ''The reason -- U.S. bases in Japan, in all
likelihood,'' he said.
Harrison said the U.N. sanctions have further strengthened the generals'
hard-line position because all North Koreans feel threatened by U.S. nuclear
arms deployed near their border, and would be united if tensions caused by
attempts to implement the sanctions should escalate to war.
The generals, he said, ''have alarmed'' others in the North Korean regime with
their ''unrealistic assessments of Pyongyang's capabilities'' in the case of a
conflict with Tokyo.
The scholar also said some of the generals were angry at the North Korean
leader's apology for Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese nationals during
his September 2002 talks with then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Despite the apology, Japan and North Korea remain at odds over the abduction
issue and rows over the problem have been an obstacle to normalizing ties.
''When Kim Jong Il apologized to Prime Minister Koizumi in 2002, this was a
very sensitive matter inside North Korea. This was regarded as very unfortunate
by many of the nationalistic younger generals and other generals and others
within North Korea,'' Harrison said.
''But this is history. Japanese colonialism was the biggest event in the
history of Korea that had an impact on the current situation, in many ways,''
he added.
==Kyodo