NKorea Warns War Will Bring "Nuclear Holocaust" (In New Year Message Calling For Peace)

[Turborama]

Source: AP

By FOSTER KLUG and KIM KWANG-TAE, Associated Press Foster Klug And Kim Kwang-tae, Associated Press – 2 hrs 16 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea welcomed the new year Saturday with a push for better ties with rival South Korea, warning that war "will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust."

Despite calls in its annual New Year's message for a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the North, which has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006, also said its military was ready for "prompt, merciless and annihilatory action" against its enemies.

The North's holiday message — scrutinized by officials and analysts in neighboring countries for policy clues — comes in the wake of its Nov. 23 artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island near the countries' disputed western sea border. That barrage, which followed an alleged North Korean torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, sent tensions between the Koreas soaring and fueled fears of war during the last weeks of 2010.

In a joint editorial in three newspapers, carried in the official Korean Central News Agency, the North said confrontation between the two Koreas should be quickly defused and called for a push to improve Korean relations.

"The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean peninsula," said the message, which was also emphatically read by a North Korean anchorwoman, wearing traditional Korean dress, in a state television broadcast monitored in Seoul. "If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110101/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_clash

[gateley]

1. Oh that's nice. Dickwads. nt

[tomm2thumbs]

2. that's how I always start all my New Year's greetings

[Selatius]

3. Pyongyang has a hell of a sense of humor.

They talk peace to the world, yet here they are sinking a neighbor's naval vessel and then launching an artillery attack against the same neighbor's island that posed no military threat.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

8. you mean fireing at the island after telling both SK and the US that

if they did war games in a contested area they would respond.

At least show the whole context

[sendero]

4. As long as they understand..

... that when all is done NK will be GLASS.

[timo]

6. which is WHY

its all bullshit talk, they wont use nukes because that would be killing themselves as well, and its no fun to whip your enemies ass if you die in the process!!!!

[David__77]

7. Hopefully no one launches provocation.

Korea cannot afford war, north or south. China should definitely use its economic leverage to pressure N. Korea to not violate armistice and other agreements, and the S. Korean progressive movement should do the same for their government.

[Rozlee]

5. Reminds me of compassionate conservatism.

We feel the pain of those who suffer. Now, we're going to make sure you suffer even more. Paz, Prospero Ano Nuevo, and pass the nukes, ya'll.

[David__77]

9. Link to entire editorial...

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1200/bring-about-a-decisive-turn-in-the-improvement

I think citing the source is useful.

"If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust. The entire nation should rise up as one in the sacred, just and patriotic struggle against war and for defending peace in the Korean peninsula."

...

"The DPRK is consistent in its stand and will to achieve peace in Northeast Asia and denuclearization of the whole of the Korean peninsula."

...

The latter point appears to be disingenuous, since the US (supposedly) removed its nukes from S. Korea in 1991. They're probably getting at trying to tie denuclearization with withdrawal of foreign troops, which, of course, will not happen.