North Korea accused South Korea Tuesday of trying to provoke
another war and threatened to turn its neighbour into "a
sea of fire" in response to any attack.
A senior military official, echoing threats made in late
October, said the "slightest moves" by US and South
Korean forces towards a pre-emptive strike would be countered
with a "more rapid and powerful advanced pre-emptive
strike."
The comments came from Vice-Marshal Kim Il-Chol, the armed
forces minister and a member of the communist state's powerful
National Defence Commission.
Kim, quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency, said
such a counterstrike by the North would employ means "unimaginably
more powerful than nuclear weapons."
It would "not merely turn everything into a sea of fire
but reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to
debris and build an independent reunified country on it."
He was speaking at a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary
of leader Kim Jong-Il's takeover as armed forces' supreme
commander.
The language was similar to that in a military statement
on October 28, issued in response to the launch by Seoul-based
groups of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the heavily fortified
border.
