North Korea leveled a blistering tirade yesterday against South Korea's new president, warning in its first mention of him since his inauguration that Seoul's tougher policies on the North could lead to "catastrophic consequences."
The lengthy commentary in the North's main Rodong Sinmun daily was the latest in a series of recent provocations by Pyongyang that have stoked tensions on the divided peninsula.
The actions are aimed at swaying conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak from his demands of concessions for Seoul's aid and refusal to shy from criticizing the nuclear-armed North.
Last week, North Korea test-fired missiles and ejected South Korean officials from a shared industrial zone. Over the weekend, a North Korean military commentator threatened to turn the South into "ashes" in a pre-emptive strike, responding to comments by a South Korean military commander that Seoul could target suspected North Korean nuclear sites if there were signs of a pending attack from Pyongyang.
Yesterday, the North called Lee a "conservative political charlatan" in the newspaper commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. It said the South should not meddle in ongoing international nuclear talks by demanding disarmament as a precondition for North-South cooperation.
Lee "is making a mess of the process to denuclearize the peninsula," the newspaper said.
The North Korean newspaper said "Lee's seizure of power created a thorn bush in the way of the inter-Korean relations," and warned he "should not misjudge the patience and silence so far kept by" the North.
"The Lee regime will be held fully accountable for the irrevocable catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the freezing of the inter-Korean relations and the disturbance of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula due to its sycophancy towards the US and its moves for confrontation with the North," the commentary said, without giving specifics.
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