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North/South Korea
Pyongyang threatens to turn South into debris
Article published on the 2008-10-28 Latest update 2008-10-28 10:13 TU
South Korean protestors with defaced portraits of Kim Jong-Il.
(Photo: AFP)
North Korea, furious at a leaflet campaign by South Korean citizens calling for the overthrow of its leader, on Tuesday accused Seoul of planning a pre-emptive strike and threatened to reduce the South to "debris" in retaliation. Earlier officials threatened to throw South Koreans' out of a joint industrial complex
South Korean activists and North Korean defectors launched between 40,000 and 100,000 leaflets in balloons from a boat off the east border towards the communist nation.
At military talks on Monday the North said it would evict South Koreans from the Kaesong joint industrial complex unless the cross-border leaflet campaigns are stopped. It accused the South's spy agency of being behind the leaflets.
The statement also threatened to cut of relations with the current conservative South Korean government unless it respects summit accords reached with previous liberal Seoul governments in 2000 and 2007.
The North's military said it would use a "more powerful and advanced" strike of its own if South Korea launches a pre-emptive strike.
"The puppet authorities (Seoul) had better bear in mind that the advanced pre-emptive strike of our own style will reduce everything... to debris, not just setting them on fire," it said in a statement carried by the state news agency, KCNA.
"It will turn out to be a just war... to build an independent reunified state on it."
The army of North Korea described its pre-emptive capability as "beyond imagination, relying on striking means more powerful than a nuclear weapon".
Japan's prime minister said Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is probably in hospital but able to make decisions.
The state of Kim's health has fueled speculation ever since the dictator failed to appear at a parade marking the 60th anniversary of the Pyongyong regime in early September. He has reportedly suffered a stroke.
Citing intelligence reports, Prime Minister Taro Aso said that Kim's condition "isn't good" but that he is believed to be still capable of taking decisions.
"Our understanding is that if that were the case, we would be seeing different developments," he added.
Japan's Fuji Television on Monday showed footage of a man it claimed was Kim Jong-Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong-Il, in Paris. It says he went to a Parisian hospital to meet a brain surgeon who is reported to have gone to Pyongyang.
Prime Minister Aso said they knew that "the French doctor flew to Beijing soon after meeting Kim Jong-Nam in Paris".
In other news, South Korea's National Intelligence Service reports that a North Korean on Tuesday crossed the heavily protected border and defected to the South.
More than 14,000 North Koreans have fled since the end of the war in 1953.
