N Korea admits Vietnam war role

Communist pilots faced superior US firepower

By Caroline Gluck in Seoul

North Korea has made its first official confirmation that it sent jet fighter pilots into action against American forces during the Vietnam War.

State-run media reports quoted the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, as telling pilots to fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own.

North Korea used Soviet-built Mig-15 fighters

The reports did not say how many North Korean pilots took part. Pyongyang also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms.

The decision to actively support Communist North Vietnam was taken in 1965, and endorsed by a meeting of the ruling Workers Party the following year, said the reports.

South Korea also took part in the Vietnam War, which broke out a decade after the two Koreas fought their own bitter conflict, which lasted three years and ended in an armed truce and not a permanent peace treaty.

Ideologically close

About 320,000 South Koreans fought alongside US troops - the largest foreign contingent after the Americans - and more than 5,000 died.

Kim Il Sung: "Fight as if the skies were your own"

Pyongyang was ideologically close to Hanoi for many years, and gave military and political support during the Vietnam War.

But relations cooled when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 and suffered another setback when Hanoi established diplomatic ties with Seoul in 1992.

Ties between the two Cold War allies have warmed recently, with Vietnam's voicing support for the inter-Korean peace process.

The head of North Korea's national assembly and nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam, is also due to visit Hanoi next week.