N. Korea says South will turn to 'pile of ashes' in case it tries war

SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Yonhap) -- A top North Korean army official says South Korea is preparing for war against the North but the North's military will turn the South into a "pile of ashes," according to Pyongyang's news agency.

Kim Il-chol, minister of the North Korean People's Armed Forces, delivered the
acerbic warning in an anniversary speech for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on
Tuesday, amid an intensifying daily offensive from Pyongyang that blames Seoul
for souring inter-Korean relations.
The South "is holding military exercises day after day aimed to launch a
preemptive strike and is driving the South-North relations into a phase of war,"
Kim Il-chol said on the 17th anniversary of the Kim Jong-il's nomination as the
armed forces' supreme commander.
"The South Korean warmongers should keep in their minds that our preemptive
strike, built upon stronger means than nuclear weapons, will not only make the
South a sea of fire but turn all things that are against the Korean people and
unification into a pile of ashes," the army minister said in a statement carried
by the North's Korean Central News Agency.
North Korean military officials issued the same warning of a preemptive strike in
October and March.
Pyongyang has recently intensified anti-Seoul criticism. On Tuesday, it called
South Korea's unification minister, Kim Ha-joong, a "lunatic" who has ruined
inter-Korean relations with confrontational policies.
Kim, Seoul's chief policymaker on inter-Korean affairs, is now in Beijing meeting
with senior Chinese officials to discuss North Korean issues.
Pyongyang also blasted Seoul's repeated offers of dialogue as "hypocritical."
Inter-Korean relations deteriorated in the past year after a decade of thawing.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak suspended food aid to Pyongyang after taking
office in February, urging the North to abandon its nuclear programs and return
South Koreans allegedly being detained in the North. Pyongyang cut off official
dialogue.
Relations further eroded when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North
Korean soldier in the North's Kumgang mountain resort in July.
As of Dec. 1, the North had evicted hundreds of South Koreans working in a joint
industrial complex in its border town of Kaesong. It also curtailed border
traffic and halted South Korean tours to Kumgang.
"The North is passing the responsibility to us, but the North has taken a series
of actions that have strained inter-Korean relations," Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman
for the Unification Ministry, said Tuesday.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)