NK Declares ‘Merciless Confrontation’ With S.Korea

North Korea yesterday issued another stern warning against South Korea in a statement issued by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

Blasting the Lee Myung-bak administration, the statement said, “We will defeat the group of traitors with the most merciless and firm determination.”

Pyongyang also pledged to show Seoul how “wretched the end of traitors will be.”

The warning came in response to President Lee’s alleged comment on North Korea’s economic system. The North said Lee’s comment is a curse and defames the dignity of its regime.

President Lee reportedly told members of the youth committee of the ruling Grand National Party Feb. 12, “If North Korea’s socialism makes its people worry over having three meals a day, it is better for North Korea to abandon its socialist system.”

The North’s committee said, “It’s become clearer that we can no longer expect improvement in inter-Korean relations and reunification and peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

“While defiling the dignity and regime of its brethren and completely negate the existence of North Korea, how is inter-Korean harmony and co-existence possible?”

The committee had declared Jan. 30 the nullification of all inter-Korean peace accords.

North Korea’s weekly magazine Tongil Shinbo (Unification News) also called the comment of South Korea’s new Unification Minister Hyun In-taek an anti-unification sophistry. In his inauguration speech Feb. 12, Hyun said he will stick to principles, the denuclearization of North Korea and international cooperation.

“As long as Hyun, who has a right-wing conservative outlook on unification, serves as South Korea’s unification minister, inter-Korean relations will remain frozen,” the magazine said.

spear@donga.com