Pyongyang to inflict ruthless retaliatory strikes on aggressors.

12/12 Tass 131a

PYONGYANG, December 12 (Itar-Tass) - North Korean people and army will
inflict "ruthless retaliatory strikes on provocateurs and aggressors, will
wipe out their bases and citadels so as to protect dignity and security of
their country", says a statement by a representative of the Korean
National Peace Committee (KNPC), circulated on Saturday by the KCNA news
agency.
It stresses that the situation in the Korean Peninsula "has sharply
deteriorated over provocations of American imperialists and the South
Korea puppet regime".
In this connection, North Korea warns that the People's Republic "is
ready for escalation of the conflict and a full-scale war" which "will not
be limited to the Korean Peninsula".
North Korea responded with this statement to a meeting, held in Seoul
on December 8, between chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral
Glenn Mullen and his South Korean counterpart Han Min Koo. Pyongyang
believes that "the American side openly backed a South Korean plan of an
attack on the DPRK" at their talks, the main topic of which was "a
dangerous military scenario".
The KNPC calls on "South Korean puppets and American imperialists to
think better of their plans". "On unleashing a war, the US and South Korea
will doom themselves to self-destruction," the statement stresses.
The situation in the Korean Peninsula started brewing up after the
artillery engagement between the North and the South on November 23 in
the area of the island of Yeongpyeong in the Yellow Sea. According to a
North Korean version, the South Korean side on that day, during the war
exercises, made "thousands of artillery shots on territorial waters of the
country". Pyongyang considered "these reckless actions a provocation and
took resolute retaliatory measures".
-0-bur/kud