According to Seoul's Yonhap news agency on Wednesday, North Korea has accused the US of attempting to have permanent military presence on the Korean Peninsula in order to keep the two Koreas from achieving reunification and reconciliation.

The North's Korean Central News Agency released a quote by a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, which stated, "It is an attempt by the U.S. to occupy South Korea permanently, and we will not tolerate it and deal sternly with it." The committee is representative of the North's Ruling Workers' Party.

Several days ago, the head of U.S. Forces Korea and the Combined Forces Command, General Burwell Bell, announced that the U.S. supports permanently maintaining its troops on the peninsula after the U.S. returns to South Korea wartime command of South Korean troops in 2012.

The spokesman claimed the U.S. commander's statements aim to divide the Korean Peninsula and "crush our republic forcefully." He added that the presence of U.S. troops is the source of tension that blocks inter-Korean reconciliation and a peaceful resolve of the nuclear issue.

Following the outbreak of the Korean War from 1950-53, the South handed over its military operational control (OPCON) to the U.S.-led United Nations Command. In 1994, Seoul reaquired the peacetime OPCON. In 2006, the sides agreed that by April 2012 Seoul will regain wartime command.