Reporters have followed a motorcade — apparently used by the reclusive Kim — around several cities in northeast China. The 35-vehicle convoy accompanied by police cars with flashing lights was seen headed to the train station in Changchun.

Kim rarely leaves North Korea and when he does he travels by special train. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported the train left the station, although it did not give a destination.

North Korea does not announce Kim’s trips until he returns home, and China has refused to say if he is in the country, even though a Japanese television station had a grainy picture of him.

Kim was reportedly accompanied by his son, Kim Jong Un, believed to be in his 20s. Many North Korea watchers predict the son will be appointed to a key party position at a ruling Workers’ Party meeting early next month — the first such gathering in decades.

To pull off the event with sufficient fanfare, North Korea will need Chinese aid, particularly following the devastating floods that battered the country’s northwest this month, analysts said.

“The convention needs to be festive with the party giving out food or normalizing day-to-day life for its people, but with the recent flood damages they are not able to,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.

“The most important thing on Kim’s agenda is scoring Chinese aid, which will ensure that the meeting will be well received by the people.”

Asked whether Kim was visiting China, a duty officer with the press office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “China and North Korea consistently maintain high-level contacts. We will release the relevant information in good time.”

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper and Yonhap both reported that Kim was believed to have met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Changchun on Friday.

The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper carried a similar report, saying the two are believed to have discussed the North’s succession, the resumption of six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, and ways to strengthen bilateral economic cooperation.

China, as North Korea’s biggest diplomatic ally and a major source of food aid and oil, would expect to be kept in the loop about major political transitions in the North, but the Beijing leadership is not likely to be enthusiastic about the prospect of another dynastic succession next door, said Zhu Feng, director of Peking University’s Center for International and Strategic Studies.

Kim also badly needs Chinese aid because of flooding earlier this month that damaged or destroyed more than 7,000 homes, and inundated 17,800 acres (7,200 hectares) of farmland close to the border with China, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported this week.

KCNA said China has already agreed to deliver some aid to help North Korea cope with the disaster but didn’t give specifics.

The North faces chronic food shortages and has relied on outside aid to feed much of its 24 million people since a famine that is believed to have killed as many as 2 million people in the 1990s.

In an attempt to improve its meager economy, it has experimented with limited market reforms and sought foreign investment, mostly from China and South Korea. But tensions with the South have caused trade and joint economic projects with the South to wither and raised the importance of Pyongyang’s ties to Beijing. — AP

Citing unnamed officials and analysts, the newspaper said a new overture to Pyongyang would be preceded by additional pressure tactics.

But it suggests that the administration of President Barack Obama has concluded that pressure alone will not be enough to move North Korea?s dictator, Kim Jong-il.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton solicited ideas from outside experts and former officials about the next steps in policy toward North Korea at a high-level meeting last week, the report said.

The consensus, even among the hawks, was that the United States needed to resume some form of contact with Kim, the paper said.

Clinton expressed impatience with the current policy, which is based on ever more stringent economic sanctions and joint US-South Korean naval exercises, which have been launched in response to the sinking in March of a South Korean warship, for which South Korea blamed the North, The Times said.

Among those advocating a fresh overture to Pyongyang is Stephen Bosworth, the special envoy for North Korea, the report said.

He visited Pyongyang in December to explore the prospect of talks, but the Obama administration could not decide whether to schedule a follow-up meeting, The Times noted. — AFP

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – China is lobbying neighbors to sign up to a road map for renewed nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong-il is visiting China amid conciliatory words and threats of “holy war.”

The details of Beijing’s plan for restarting stalled six-party nuclear talks came from a South Korean diplomatic source, who spoke on Saturday after discussion in Seoul with Wu Dawei, China’s top envoy in the talks.

But the source, as well as a Japanese official speaking in Beijing, stressed that big obstacles remained, even if the secretive Kim’s trip to China yields another vow of North Korea’s willingness to sit down and discuss a dormant deal to scrap its nuclear weapons in return for aid.

“We don’t want to restart six-party talks for the sake of talks,” the South Korean diplomatic source said. “North Korea should change its attitude and show seriousness in denuclearizing.”

China’s regional lobbying, and courting of the reclusive Kim, highlight the pressures that North Korea — isolated, poor and with a brace of primitive nuclear bombs — has brought to bear on northeast Asia, home to the world’s second and third biggest economies and a big U.S. military presence.

Kim, 68, and his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, were in China to visit the school of senior Kim’s father and founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, a source with knowledge of the secretive trip told Reuters.

“Trust me, it’s 100 percent both are here,” the source said, declining to give details when asked.

Kim Il-sung attended the Yu Wen High School in the northeastern Chinese city of Jilin in the 1920s. The school houses a memorial hall to Kim which is not open to the public.

The museum was renovated recently ahead of a visit by a group of North Korean dignitaries, a second source said.

Classes were suspended on Thursday amid tight security and a school choir performed for the dignitaries, the second source added, but did not know if the Kims were among the guests.

“They sang ‘The song of General Kim Il-sung’ in Chinese and Korean. It’s the school song,” the second source said.

There had been no conclusive sightings in China of Kim, who has appeared frail and gaunt since reportedly suffering a stroke in 2008.

Neither source wanted to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the trip. The two neighbors do not disclose much information about Kim’s travels, and then only after he has left for home.

DIPLOMAT’S WARNING

On Friday, a North Korean diplomat brandished the possibility of nuclear war with South Korea and the United States.

“If Washington and Seoul try to create conflict on the Korean peninsula we respond with a holy war on the basis of our nuclear deterrent forces,” North Korea’s ambassador to Cuba, Kwon Sung-chol, said in Havana, according to a report from there by China’s official Xinhua news agency.

North Korea staged nuclear test blasts in 2006 and 2009, drawing international condemnations and U.N. sanctions backed by China, the biggest economic and diplomatic backer of Pyongyang.

China’s envoy, Wu, proposed a three-stage process to restart the multilateral talks aimed at coaxing Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons in return for aid and other assurances, the South Korean diplomatic source told Reuters.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter returned home from Pyongyang on Friday with an American who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korea. The North’s state media said number two leader, Kim Yong-nam, had told Carter that Pyongyang wanted the nuclear talks resumed.

China has sought to defuse confrontation by hosting six-party nuclear disarmament talks since August 2003. But last April, North Korea quit the talks and reversed “disablement” steps intended to cripple its chief reactor complex, unhappy with implementation of an initial disarmament agreement reached in 2007.

North Korea has been retreating from its earlier public renunciation of the talks. South Korea and Washington say resuming the talks will be impossible until Pyongyang also faces up to their conclusion that it was behind the sinking of a South Korean navy ship, the Cheonan, in March.

South Korea lost 46 sailors when the Cheonan sank. Seoul said an inquiry found there was no doubt North Korea torpedoed the ship, but Pyongyang denied it was responsible. — Reuters

Aijalon Gomes, 31, hugged Carter just before they boarded a plane at Pyongyang’s airport, footage aired by broadcaster APTN in North Korea showed.

Carter had flown to the North Korean capital three days earlier on a rare private mission to negotiate Gomes’ release.

The former president “courteously requested” a special pardon for Gomes, which leader Kim Jong Il granted, North Korean state media said. Gomes had been sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor and a hefty fine for trespassing and committing a “hostile act.”

They were due to arrive in Boston on Friday to be reunited with Gomes’ mother and other family members, Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said in Atlanta.

In Washington, the State Department welcomed the news of Gomes’ release.

We “are relieved that he will soon be safely reunited with his family,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “We appreciate former President Carter’s humanitarian effort and welcome North Korea’s decision to grant Mr. Gomes special amnesty and allow him to return to the United States.”

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Carter’s visit included cordial talks with North Korea’s No. 2 official, Kim Yong Nam.

Kim relayed Pyongyang’s interest in resuming the six-nation disarmament talks and reiterated the regime’s commitment to denuclearization, KCNA said.

However, there was no indication that Carter met with Kim Jong Il, who was making a surprise trip to China during the rare visit by an American dignitary to the North Korean capital. A year ago, Kim sat down for talks and a well-publicized photo with former U.S. President Bill Clinton when he went to Pyongyang on a similar journey to negotiate the release of two American journalists.

The U.S. and North Korea fought on opposite sides of the 1950-53 Korean War and do not have diplomatic relations, but Carter is well-regarded in North Korea after making a groundbreaking trip to Pyongyang in 1994 to meet with Kim’s father, late President Kim Il Sung. Those friendly talks led to a landmark nuclear disarmament pact.

Aijalon Gomes (pronounced EYE-jah-lahn GOHMS) was the fourth American arrested in North Korea for illegal entry in a year when he was seized in January, accused of crossing into North Korea from China.

Besides journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, also sentenced to hard labor and released last August on a special pardon, activist Robert Park deliberately crossed into the country last Christmas and was expelled by North Korean authorities about 40 days later.

Gomes’ motive was not clear but he was said to be a close friend of Park and was photographed in Seoul rallying for Park’s release just two weeks before his own arrest in North Korea.

In April, North Korean authorities sentenced Gomes to eight years of hard labor and fined 70 million won — more than $600,000 — for trespassing and committing a “hostile act.” Gomes “admitted all the facts,” state-run media said.

Last month, North Korean media reported that Gomes tried to kill himself, “driven by his strong guilty conscience, disappointment and despair at the U.S. government that has not taken any measure for his freedom,” and was hospitalized.

A U.S. delegation, including a consular official, two doctors and a translator, made a secret visit to Pyongyang earlier this month to try to secure Gomes’ release. The group visited Gomes at the hospital but were unable to negotiate his release then, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last week.

Tall and muscular when he appeared at anti-North Korean rallies in Seoul in January, Gomes looked markedly thinner Friday. He was dressed in a white striped polo shirt and dark slacks, APTN footage showed.

“The measure taken … to set free the illegal entrant is a manifestation of (North Korea’s) humanitarianism and peace-loving policy,” KCNA said.

The Carter Center and U.S. officials have emphasized that the ex-president’s trip was a private humanitarian mission.

However, such visits have in the past provided an opportunity for unofficial diplomacy.

KCNA said the Americans held “an open-hearted discussion” with North Korea’s foreign minister and vice foreign minister for U.S. affairs on their countries’ relations as well as nuclear disarmament.

Six-nation nuclear disarmament talks have been stalled since North Korea walked away from the table last year. — AP

It marked Kim’s second trip to China in three months — unusual for a man who never flies and travels only by armored train.

South Korean media and regional analysts said he may be seeking Chinese aid following flooding in his impoverished country’s northwest — and could be laying the diplomatic ground work for the succession of his son, who is thought to be traveling with him.

In any case, it was unclear whether he would return in time for a meeting with Carter, an elder statesman well-regarded in North Korea despite the two countries’ longtime animosity. Carter met with Kim’s father, late President Kim Il Sung, on his last trip to Pyongyang in 1994 — a warm meeting that led to a landmark nuclear disarmament deal.

Neither country announced the trip; Kim’s travels typically are not publicized by North Korea until after his return.

But his stop in Jilin city in northeastern China was confirmed by two teachers at the Yuwen Middle School, a school Kim’s father once attended that carries historic and patriotic significance for North Koreans.

“He definitely came over. But I’m not sure if his son was with him or what time he came,” said a physical education teacher who would give only his surname, Zhao.

Another teacher said Kim visited the school in the morning for about 20 minutes. He refused to give his name.

Kim Il Sung attended the school from 1927 to 1930 after his family fled the Japanese occupation of Korea. Kim biographies say he began absorbing communist ideology while at Yuwen, making it pilgrimage site for North Koreans seeking to pay homage to the one-time anti-Japanese guerrilla fighter-turned-president.

Such a visit just days before the 100th anniversary of Japan’s colonization of Korea carries symbolic weight as well. North Korea tends to play up the Kim family’s patriotism during succession campaigns.

Kim Jong Il watchers will be eager to see television footage or photos of the 68-year-old leader to check his health. In video run by Chinese Central Television in May, Kim appeared thin but vigorous during meetings with China’s President Hu Jintao and other officials, despite having reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Kim checked into the Jilin Crystal Hotel, and roads leading to the secluded luxury hotel were blocked by police. The hotel’s website advertises plush suites, a billiard room, swimming pool and sauna, with a scrolling banner in broken English that reads: “Loosely expressing one-self and let the mood flying high.”

It wasn’t clear how many rooms Kim booked but Yonhap and YTN television in Seoul said he may be traveling with a son to consult with Chinese officials on succession plans.

It’s widely believed that Kim is preparing to transfer power to his third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, and many North Korea watchers predict the son will be appointed to a key party position at a rare ruling Workers’ Party meeting early next month.

“Kim is at a crucial crossroads — whether to hold the party’s conference as scheduled or delay it until after they’ve recovered from floods,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul. “Kim desperately needs Chinese food aid to hold the party’s conference as planned.”

The flooding earlier this month damaged or destroyed more than 7,000 homes, and wiped out bridges and railways, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday. China has already offered aid to help North Korea cope, KCNA said.

The North faces chronic food shortages and has relied on outside aid to feed its people. Seeking to improve its meager economy, Pyongyang has experimented with limited market reforms and sought foreign investment, mostly from China and South Korea. But joint projects with South Korea have withered in the face of tensions, heightening Pyongyang’s reliance on Beijing.

For its part, China is certain to use Kim’s visit as an opportunity to prod North Korea toward rejoining international talks aimed at nuclear disarmament.

China has hosted the six-nation talks since 2002 but North Korea walked away from them last year in protest over the international condemnation that followed its testing of a long-range missile. Prospects for restarting negotiations were undermined further after a South Korean warship sank in March, killing 46 sailors. Seoul and Washington accuse North Korea of torpedoing the vessel, while the North denies involvement and has threatened harsh retaliation if punished.

It is not known who Kim was to meet on this trip, although someone of his stature would likely meet a senior leader. The Tokyo Shimbun reported that Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping was headed to Jilin to meet Kim.

Still, North Korea watchers puzzled over the timing of the visit — so soon after his last trip to China and during Carter’s visit.

“He should be seeing Carter, but perhaps he has lost all hope in the U.S.” said Cui Yingjiu, a retired professor of Korean language at Peking University in Beijing who was a schoolmate of Kim’s in the 1960s and retains ties to the North Korean elite.

U.S. officials have stressed that Carter’s trip is an unofficial, private visit to negotiate the release of 31-year-old Aijalon Gomes, an American sentenced to eight years of hard labor in a North Korean prison and fined some $700,000 for entering the country illegally.

However, such visits, like the journey by ex-President Bill Clinton a year ago to secure the release of two American journalists, also offer an opportunity for unofficial diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea.

Analysts said Carter and Kim could still meet Friday, after Kim returns to Pyongyang and before Carter’s departure. — AP

The visit, which has not been announced by either country, is highly unusual, coming just three months after the last visit of Kim, who rarely travels and when he does goes by train. It came particularly as a surprise because former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is in North Korea and many had speculated he would meet the leader.

But his stop in Jilin city in Jilin province in northeastern China was confirmed by two teachers at the Yuwen Middle School.

“He definitely came over. But I’m not sure if his son was with him or what time he came,” said a physical education teacher who would give only his surname Zhao.

Another teacher said Kim visited the school in the morning for about 20 minutes. He refused to give his name.

Kim may be traveling with a son to consult with Chinese officials on plans to transfer power to a successor, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency and YTN television in Seoul said.

It’s widely believed that Kim is preparing to transfer power to his third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, and many North Korea watchers believe the son will be granted a key party position next month.

Kim’s father, late President Kim Il Sung, attended the school from 1927 to 1930 after his family fled the Japanese occupation of Korea. At the time, Yuwen was a hot-bed of leftist thinking. Biographies of Kim say that he began absorbing communist ideology while at Yuwen. In 1928, Kim organized protests against “reactionary teachers” at Yuwen in addition to demonstrations against Japan and the purchase of Japanese goods, according to the Jilin government’s website.

According to Yonhap, citing an unidentified high-ranking Seoul official, Kim’s special armored train crossed the border into China early Thursday. YTN carried a similar report but said Kim arrived in China late Wednesday night.

The surprise trip comes as former Carter makes a rare visit to North Korea on a private mission to secure the freedom of an imprisoned American. There was no word on whether Carter — who met in 1994 with Kim Il Sung — had been scheduled to meet the current leader.

There was no comment from China’s Foreign Ministry or from the Communist Party’s international liaison department, which deals with relations with North Korea.

North Korea announced in June that new ruling Workers’ Party leaders would be elected in early September, sparking speculation that the move is aimed at boosting a government campaign to hand over power to a Kim heir.

Speculation on the succession intensified after the 68-year-old Kim reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008. Kim’s health problems prompted concerns about instability and a possible power struggle in the nuclear-armed country if he were to die without anointing a successor.

Kim last visited China in May, meeting top leaders, including President Hu Jintao. — AP

Carter was making a private humanitarian visit to negotiate the release of Aijalon Gomes, sentenced to eight years of hard labor in a North Korean prison and fined some $700,000 for entering the country illegally from China, U.S. officials said.

There was no indication Thursday that Gomes was free. Carter, originally slated to depart Thursday, appeared to have extended his trip by at least a day, South Korea’s YTN television reported in Seoul.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, meanwhile, appeared to be making a surprise trip to China. Teachers in Jilin province in northeastern China told The Associated Press he paid a 20-minute visit to their school Thursday morning — a rare trip for a man who never flies and travels only by armored train.

Neither country announced the trip; Kim’s travels typically are not publicized by North Korea until after his return.

It was unclear whether he would return in time for a meeting with Carter, an elder statesman well-regarded in North Korea despite the two countries’ longtime animosity. Carter met with Kim’s father, late President Kim Il Sung, on his last trip to Pyongyang in 1994 — a warm meeting that led to a landmark nuclear disarmament deal.

U.S. officials have stressed that Carter’s trip is an unofficial, private visit. However, such visits, including the journey by ex-President Bill Clinton a year ago to secure the release of two American journalists, also offer an opportunity for unofficial diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea.

North Korea and the U.S. fought on opposite sides of the Korean War. Three years of warfare ended in 1953 with a cease-fire but not a peace treaty, and the two Koreas remain divided by one of the world’s most fiercely fortified borders.

To this day, the U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to guard its longtime ally, a presence that chafes at North Korea, which cites the forces as a main reason behind its need for nuclear weapons.

For more than a year, relations have been particularly tense, with North Korea testing a nuclear weapon and long-range missile technology, and the U.S. leading the charge to punish the North for its defiance of U.N. sanctions.

The March sinking of a South Korean warship, which killed 46 sailors, has provided fresh fodder for tensions. Seoul and Washington accuse North Korea of torpedoing the vessel, while the North denies involvement and has threatened harsh retaliation if punished.

With all sides digging in, six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament have remained stalled. Last year, it took Clinton’s visit to get the U.S. and North Korea talking again. Carter’s mission to bring Gomes home could again provide another face-saving opening for contact.

Paik Hak-soon of the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul predicted that Kim would ask Carter to relay a positive message to Washington on the resumption of the nuclear talks. He noted Carter’s popularity and symbolic role in defusing tensions in 1994.

North Korea agreed to release Gomes to Carter if the ex-president paid Pyongyang a visit, one U.S. official told AP earlier in the week, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in Washington that he could not give details of Carter’s trip.

“We don’t want to jeopardize the prospects for Mr. Gomes to be returned home by discussing any of the details,” Toner said Wednesday.

Gomes, who taught English in South Korea, was described by acquaintances as a devout Christian who may have followed an American friend, Robert Park, into North Korea. Park has said he entered the country deliberately last Christmas to call attention to its human rights record. He was expelled about 40 days later.

Last month, the North’s Korean Central News Agency said Gomes, 31, attempted suicide, “driven by his strong guilty conscience, disappointment and despair at the U.S. government that has not taken any measure for his freedom.”

U.S. officials have pressed for his release on humanitarian grounds, but the State Department said officials who made a quiet trip to North Korea earlier this month failed to secure his freedom. — AP

The military buildup near the capital began in mid-July amid high tensions on the peninsula, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a report submitted to a parliamentary committee.

“Preparation for a massive national event is under way” in North Korea and the move is presumably related to a key Workers’ Party meeting in September and the 65th anniversary of the party’s founding in October, it said.

North Korea would likely use the military assets to stage a parade in Pyongyang, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

North Korea often marks important national holidays with military parades, often featuring newly developed missiles and weapons.

North Korea said in June that it would elect new ruling Workers’ Party leaders in a party conference in early September, sparking speculation that the move is aimed at boosting a government campaign to hand over power from leader Kim Jong Il to a son.

It’s widely believed that Kim is preparing to transfer power to his third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, and many North Korea watchers say next month’s party meeting is aimed at giving the son a key party job.

Speculation on the succession intensified after the 68-year-old Kim suffered a reported stroke in 2008, with Kim’s apparently falling health prompting concerns about instability and a possible power struggle in the nuclear-armed country if he were to die without anointing a successor.

The North’s ties with South Korea were plunged to their lowest point in years when a Seoul-led international investigation in May blamed Pyongyang torpedoing in March the South Korean warship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. North Korea denies involvement, and has issued a series of threats to South Korea over military drills between South Korea and the United States.

“The army and people of the (North) will never tolerate any reckless moves of the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors to provoke a nuclear war but (will) launch a sacred retaliatory war … based on nuclear deterrent any time they deem necessary,” North Korea’s No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam said Tuesday, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

A similar threat was issued last month by the North’s powerful National Defense Commission.

The North routinely threatens attacks whenever South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an invasion. The U.S. says it has no intention of invading the North.

South Korea and the U.S. are currently holding annual computerized military drills. They also conducted large-scale joint naval exercises last month and plan to hold more maneuvers in the Yellow Sea early next month.

The two Koreas officially remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

China’s top nuclear envoy is to visit Seoul later this week to discuss North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and his recent trip to Pyongyang, according to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.

Wu Dawei met senior North Korean officials last week in Pyongyang and discussed the resumption of six-nation talks on ending the North’s nuclear program. Pyongyang’s state media reported that Wu and North Korean officials reached a full consensus of views on all the matters discussed but didn’t provide details.

North Korea walked away from the nuclear disarmament talks last year in protest at an international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch. Prospects for restarting the talks were put into doubt after the warship sinking.

Former President Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, plans to leave for North Korea on Tuesday to try to gain the freedom of an American imprisoned for illegally entering the communist country, U.S. officials said. Aijalon Mahli Gomes was arrested in January before later being sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $700,000.

North Korea agreed to release Gomes if Carter were to come to bring him home, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press. The official and a second who confirmed the trip spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. — AP

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young speaks during a parliamentary committee at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010. South Korean Defense Ministry said Tuesday that North Korea is deploying troops, artillery and tanks near Pyongyang in apparent preparation for a massive military parade marking key national events later this year. (AP Photo/ Yonhap, Bae Jung-hyun) **KOREA OUT**

The boat was captured on August 8 off the east coast, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

“A South Korean boat which was fishing in our exclusive economic zone in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) was seized by the KPA (North Korean military) navy on August 8,” it said.

“A preliminary investigation revealed the boat, with four South Koreans and three Chinese on board, intruded into our economic zone…. Investigation will continue,” it added.

The seizure of the 41-tonne fishing boat further heightened months-old tensions between the two sides in the aftermath of the deadly sinking of a South Korean fishing boat in March with the loss of 46 lives.

The South has sent North Korea a message urging it to release the boat and its crew “in accordance with international laws and customs and humanitarian spirit”.

The South’s coastguard has said the boat was presumed to have been inside an economic zone proclaimed by the North in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) when it was detained.

The seizure was made during a major South Korean naval exercise in the Yellow Sea, for which the North had threatened retaliation. — AFP

Seoul, South Korea

A North Korean fighter jet crashed Wednesday on what appeared to be an illicit flight deep inside China, South Korean and Chinese news agencies reported.

The South’s Yonhap news agency, reporting from the major northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, said the pilot, the only person on board the plane, was killed in what intelligence sources believe was an attempt to defect to Russia. A house reportedly was destroyed in the crash but no one on the ground was injured.

Photographs of the crash site clearly show the North Korean red star symbol on the fuselage beneath the tail section. South Korean defense officials believe the plane was a MiG21, a fairly advanced model. The North Korean Air Force has about 700 planes, ranging from MiG15s used in the Korean War to late-model MiG23s and a few MiG27s. The former Soviet Union provided most of the planes before the collapse of Soviet rule 20 years ago.

China’s Xinhua news agency confirmed the plane had gone down in the district of Fushun in Liaoning Province, about 120 miles north of a North Korean air base at Uiju near the Yalu River border. Security officials reportedly swarmed to the crash scene and blockaded the area but not before locals photographed the wreckage and spread the pictures on the Internet.

The plane took off from Uiju, according to South Korean radar images. South Korean defense officials said the plane was a MiG21, not an early model MiG15 used as a trainer, based on information picked up by monitoring equipment they said is able not only to track the plane but also to identify the model.

Analysts believe the plane may have been bound for Russia and flown off course, but the reason for the flight or the crash remains shrouded in mystery. The inexperience of the pilot, or fuel shortage though, may have been a factor.

Bolstering that theory, analysts say North Korean pilots often lack adequate training due to scant fuel available to fly as many hours as needed to hone their skills.

“Most of their planes are out of date,” says Kim Tae-woo, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. ”They fly very much less than our South Korean planes. They have a fuel problem and lack spare parts.”

The only advantage the North Koreans may have, says Mr. Kim, is in sheer numbers. South Korea has about 500 planes, spearheaded by about 60 F-15s and many more F-16s. The difference, he says, is “we have well trained pilots, and we have fuel.”

While citizen defections are becoming increasingly common and North Korean soldiers have defected from time to time into China due to food shortages, pilot defections are extremely rare.

Three North Korean pilots have defected to South Korea, but there is no record of a North Korean pilot defecting to Russia. The pilot in this case may have believed that he could quickly overfly China, which would automatically have returned him to certain execution in North Korea.

The last time a North Korean pilot reportedly defected was in May 1996, when he flew a MiG19 to the South Korean air base at Suwon, south of Seoul. A North Korean pilot took advantage of a training exercise in February 1983 to fly a MiG19 to another base near Seoul. And a pilot flew a MiG15 to South Korea in September 1953, just two months after the end of the Korean War. — The Christian Science Monitor