U.S.WARNS PYONGYANG NOT TO EXPECT FOOD AID

SEOULDefense Secretary William Cohen said Friday that large-scale food aid to North Korea was highly unlikely until Pinging began dismantling its military threat to Seoul.

The American bluntly warned North Korea that any aggression would be a grave mistake, resulting in "overwhelming damage and defeat" for the Stalinist state. .

' 'I doubt very much whether there will be massive assistance without some kind of reciprocal action on the part of the North Koreans," Mr. Cohen said before leaving South Korea at the end of his first trip to Asia as defense secretary.

Mr. Cohen said the international community would not feed a hungry nation that was armed with chemical weapons and long-range missiles and that was pouring its scarce resources into a military geared for art

"It would be unreasonable to expect the world community to subsidize and to support a domestic economy that is in a state of collapse while the military continues to operate at ordinary rates," he said.

In Tokyo, the chairman Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, said there had Pinging military cap the government's admission that food shortages had 1 of at least 134 children.

"On the military side, the North Koreans trave just completed an extensive winter training cycle,'' said the retiring general, who left South Korea on Thursday, adding: "They have apparently enough fuel to have conducted a fairly robust training that involved road marches and movement of units. Pilots have been flying at a greater rate than the last two years, or three.

"If they are in such great difficulty as they claim they are, and if they are in need of assistance, why are they spending their resources on this kind of military exercising?"

General Shalikashvili said most of North Korea's armed forces remained poised close to the Demilitarized Zone that splits the peninsula. He said that would allow the North to strike at Seoul with "little or no warning."

Pinging has said it will respond on Wednesday to a proposal made last year by President Bill Clinton and President Kim Young Sam of South Korea for four-way talks between the Koreas, the

United States and China.

"I don't want to fuel any kind of war talk here," General Shalikashvili said "My hope remains that we will be able to have the talks proceed, and we will continue to look for ways to lessen tensions on the peninsula."

On Friday, U.S. and South Korean officials said that Southern border guards fired warning shots at a group of North Korean soldiers in a restricted area. The Northern soldiers replied with shots into the air, before pulling back. Pinging demanded that South Korea apologize. (Reuters, AP, WP)