North Korea accused the United States on Saturday of stepping up spy flights as a preparation for war as South Korea's new president vowed to work for a swift, peaceful end to the nuclear crisis on the peninsula."The U.S. imperialists committed over 180 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in February by mobilizing strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes on different missions," the North's official KCNA news agency said, quoting military sources.

DPRK is an acronym for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the state's official name.

The agency said an RC-135 strategic reconnaissance aircraft -- the plane used to probe Soviet air defenses during the Cold War -- "illegally intruded into the air above the territorial waters in the East Sea (Sea of Japan)... almost every day from February 21 and made shuttle flights in the air for hours to spy on major targets in its east coastal area."

KCNA said other spy flights were carried out by a U-2 high-altitude plane and an EP-3 electronic reconnaissance aircraft.
The U.S. military had also mobilized at least 130 warplanes on February 25 alone for attack drills in South Korea, it said, concluding:

"All these espionage flights and air war games clearly indicate the desperate efforts of the U.S. to start a war against the DPRK."

"These unceasing U.S. war drills drive the situation on the Korean peninsula to such a dangerous pitch of tension that a nuclear war may break out on it any moment," KCNA said in another report.

"The DPRK is keeping itself fully ready to repel the U.S. military attack," it added.

The U.S. military command in Seoul, the South Korean capital, could not be reached for comment.

Tensions over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons plans spiked on Wednesday after Washington, citing satellite photographs, said North Korean scientists had fired up a reactor mothballed since 1994 at the Yongbyon complex north of Pyongyang.

U.S. officials and congressional sources said later scientists were also readying a plutonium reprocessing plant at the same complex, and could have it operating as a source of weapons-grade material within a month.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told his country of 48 million on Saturday he "firmly opposed" the North's suspected drive to build nuclear weapons, adding: "North Korea's nuclear issue is the task we should resolve immediately."

PEACEFUL OUTCOME

He stressed, however, that he would seek a peaceful resolution, saying keeping South Koreans safe was the biggest duty of his government, inaugurated on Tuesday.

"If peace on the Korean peninsula is broken, we cannot afford the huge disaster it would trigger," he said.

The liberal new president has been at odds with the United States over how to cope with the four-month-old nuclear crisis which North Korea has escalated step by step as Washington tried to focus its attention on disarming and possibly attacking Iraq .

Washington says it has no plans to invade the North but adds that prudence requires keeping all options open.

In a separate development, an international consortium overseeing the construction of two nuclear reactors in the North has agreed to slow the pace of the project, Kyodo news agency quoted Japanese government sources as saying.

The decision, if confirmed, is bound to anger power-starved North Korea. Pyongyang says it needs to restart Yongbyon to generate power after the United States and its partners in the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) agreed in November to halt fuel oil shipments to the North.

In 1994, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in return for two modern light-water reactors and regular shipments of fuel oil. It is more difficult to extract plutonium from the spent fuel rods of a light-water reactor.

Japanese foreign ministry officials in charge of KEDO were not immediately available for comment and a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman said he was not aware of the report.

In Beijing, a European Parliament member fresh from a visit to the isolated communist state said officials there had told him North Korea wanted to avoid a conflict but any sanctions or any U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities would trigger a war.

British Labour parliamentarian Glyn Ford said the officials had insisted they planned to use the Yongbyon reactor for energy purposes only despite Washington's fears it is part of a weapons program.

As Roh spoke of a peaceful resolution to the crisis, thousands of people rallied in central Seoul calling for a tough stance against the communist state.

The rare anti-North Korea and pro-U.S. rally in the heart of the capital came three months after much larger crowds staged angry protests against the United States in a groundswell that helped the dovish Roh win a close presidential election.

About 20,000 mostly elderly and conservative protesters said South Korea must seek peace through strength and firm up its military alliance with the United States.

"The best way to secure peace is to be prepared for war," said a placard carried by a South Korean military veteran at a rally organized by groups of veterans, Christians and Buddhists.

"We are not against Roh Moo-hyun, but we want him to listen to conservative views as well as so-called progressive ones," said a veteran of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The nuclear crisis began in October, when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted pursuing a covert weapons program. Later, the North expelled United Nations inspectors from Yongbyon and pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Pyongyang is demanding direct talks with Washington to defuse the crisis, but Washington -- saying it will not succumb to blackmail -- is insisting the nuclear issue be resolved in broad cooperation with other key states.

PHOTO CAPTION

South Korean Christians carry a United Nations flag (L), United States flag (C) and South Korean flag as they pray for the peace on the Korean peninsula at a rally in Seoul to support U.S. troops in South Korea , March 1, 2003. About 20,000 South Korean Christians rallied on Saturday to protest against the North Korean government's decision to restart the atomic reactor at the heart of its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions. (Lee Jae-Won/Reuters)