Mar 31, 2008 8:45 pm US/Pacific
North Korea Criticizes New South Korean President
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ―
North Korea's media criticized South Korea's new president for the first time since his inauguration in a blistering rebuke, warning Tuesday that Seoul's pro-U.S. policies could lead to "irrevocable catastrophic consequences."
The lengthy article in the North's main Rodong Sinmun daily came amid a series of provocations by the communist nation that have stoked tensions on the divided peninsula.
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.
The North's moves were aimed at swaying new conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak from taking a tougher stand on his communist neighbor.
On Tuesday, 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 that include the U.S. 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 two Koreas have made unprecedented strides toward reconciliation under a past decade of liberal presidents, holding the first summit between the North and South in 2000 and reconnecting transportation links across their heavily armed frontier. That has happened despite the two Koreas remaining technically at war, after the three-year Korean War ended in a 1953 cease-fire that has never been replaced with a peace treaty.
Lee has said he will demand more in exchange for South Korean aid to the impoverished North and his government is not shying from criticizing Pyongyang's alleged human rights abuses.
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 U.S. and its moves for confrontation with the North," the commentary said, without giving specifics.
The South Korean president's office will determine how to react after analyzing the North Korean commentary, spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told reporters, according to his office.
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