Rodong Sinmun, Pyongyang's ruling party newspaper, said the US plan to relocate American troops away from the heavily fortified inter-Korean border is a strategic move to evade North Korea's heavy artillery retaliation in the event of war.

"The redeployment of the US forces in South Korea is a very dangerous military measure prompted by the US imperialist attempt to use nukes in the second Korean war," Rodong said in a statement.

Pyongyang has hundreds of artillery pieces deployed close to the border that can easily strike the South Korea capital, Seoul. The planned redeployment would take US troops out of range of North Korean guns.

"It is the view of US military strategists that when a war starts in Korea, Seoul and areas north of it will turn into sea of fire in a matter of a few days due to North Korea's strong artillery fire power and none of the US troops within its firing range will be able to survive," it said.

"That's why they are now craftily working to prevent disastrous consequences through the redeployment of the US forces before the outbreak of a war."

North Korea, which has been locked in a standoff with the United States since October over its nuclear ambitions, has claimed Washington is preparing a war against the communist country.

The statement came as South Korean Defense Minister Cho Young-Kil was set to meet with his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld in Washington on Friday to discuss how to reposition 37,000 US troops in South Korea.

The planned realignment, which Washington says is to enhance the US-South Korean joint war capability, is being discussed amid rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.

The United States and South Korea agreed in early June to gradually reposition US forces, notably 15,000 American soldiers assigned to the US 2nd Infantry Division, away from the inter-Korean border.

The United States also plans to relocate its main garrison at Yongsan, central Seoul, as it has long been an irritant in bilateral ties because of its location on prime real estate in the heart of the South Korean capital.

The US forces have been deployed as a trip wire along the border between North and South since the 1950-1953 Korean War, ensuring that an invasion from the North would immediately draw the United States into the conflict.

Washington argues that the trip wire analogy is outdated.

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