N. Korea blasts Seoul amid reports of `important announcement`

(ATTN: UPDATES with reports of announcement by North Korea's pro-unification organization in paras 5-6)
SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea blasted South Korea's conservative government of President Lee Myung-bak Sunday, warning that inter-Korean tension would continue to escalate unless it stops cracking down on pro-unification forces.

"The Lee Myung-bak group's reckless suppression of the pro-reunification
democratic forces is a frontal challenge to the South Korean people who desire
new politics and new life, and a crime against the nation and reunification," the
North's main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary carried by the
country's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"It is as clear as noonday that if the (Lee Myung-bak) group is allowed to commit
the crime of mercilessly suppressing the just patriotic activities for
reunification of the South Korean people by linking them with the North, all the
democratic forces for reunification will be destroyed and the fascist
dictatorship revive in South Korea," the commentary said.
"This will further escalate the confrontation between the North and the South,"
it added.
In a similar development, the Central Committee of North Korea's Democratic Front
for the Reunification of the Fatherland said inter-Korean relations will face a
catastrophe if the Seoul government was allowed to continue what he called its
"fascist suppression of pro-unification forces."
"With the Lee Myung-bak group left as it is, there can be no independence, which
is the very life of our nation, in the South and no democracy while we cannot
expect peace or reunification of our nation," an unidentified spokesman for the
group said in a statement also carried by KCNA.
In a stinging attack last week on what it called Lee's "fascist" government,
North Korea threatened to cut off all ties with South Korea, indicating that an
ongoing civilian tourism project and a joint inter-Korean factory project in the
communist country could be halted.
All government-level contact between the two divided Korean states remain severed
since the Lee government took office in February with a vow to get tough on the
North while strengthening ties with Washington.
Meanwhile, South Korean officials said they were closely watching for any new
developments in North Korea after a report by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper
that North Korean diplomats abroad have been told to stay put to await an
"important announcement" from Pyongyang.
Yomiuri said the North's announcement could be made as early as Monday.
On Sunday, unconfirmed reports from China said North Korea has imposed an
temporary entry ban on all foreigners wanting to visit the communist country.
Also on Sunday, Kim Ho-nyoun, a spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry,
said his government had "no information" regarding the report of an impending
"important announcement" from North Korea.
Diplomatic sources in China have also cast doubt on the reports, saying North
Korean diplomats there appeared to be doing business as usual.