NEW YORK (Yonhap) _ A senior North Korean diplomat has urged the United Nations to disband its command headquarters in Seoul, accusing the post of being a U.S. attempt to prolong its regional hegemony, South Korean officials said Saturday.
Amb. Park Gil-yon, chief of the North’s mission to the United Nations, made the request in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday, said officials at South Korea’s mission to the world body.

Washington has insisted on the continued deployment of the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul “under the name of the U.N. to maintain its military superiority in Northeast Asia and on the Korean Peninsula,” the officials quoted Park as saying in the letter.