Север заявил о захвате необитаемого подводного аппарата производства США в районе г. Хамхон на восточном побережье страны. Аппарат выставлен на всеобщее обозрение в Пхеньяне. США не подтверждают его принадлежность.
N.Korea claims capture of U.S. submersible
By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer 30 minutes ago
North Korea claimed it has captured an unmanned U.S. submersible and put it on display in Pyongyang, a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan said Monday. The U.S. dismissed the report.
The small vessel was captured during a reconnaissance mission in waters off North Korea's eastern city of Hamhung, said the Choson Sinbo newspaper, which is published by a pro-North Korean association linked to the Pyongyang government.
The newspaper report on its Web site, which is monitored in Seoul, was accompanied by a picture purported to be of the black torpedo-shaped U.S. vessel. There were no further details as to when or how North Korea obtained it.
A spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea, David Oten, dismissed the report.
"We have nothing unaccounted for and there is no way for us to verify that this is a U.S. vessel," Oten said.
Last September, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il instructed officials to put the captured vessel on public display next to the spy ship USS Pueblo, which the communist regime seized along with its crew of 82 in 1968, the newspaper said. The crew was released after 11 months.
The Pueblo, moored to the bank of the Taedong River in Pyongyang, is now the site of tours to inspire anti-U.S. sentiment among the country's 23 million people. Some 1,500 North Koreans made daily visits to the Pueblo during a recent month-long, anti-U.S. rally period, said the newspaper.
Despite repeated U.S. assurances that it has no intention of attacking the North, the communist country frequently claims that Washington seeks to invade it and that the U.S. is driving tensions on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.
The North recently raised regional tensions by test-launching seven missiles, including a new long-range model believed capable of reaching the U.S. that failed shortly after takeoff.
