By DPA,
Seoul : North Korea’s military Tuesday threatened the destruction of its southern neighbour, accusing South Korea of planning a military strike against the Pyongyang regime, a media report said.
At the slightest sign of an attempt by Seoul to preemptively strike the communist state, North Korea would attack with “means more powerful than a nuclear strike”, the South Korean Yonhap news agency said, quoting a report in its northern counterpart, the Korean Central News Agency.
“The puppet authorities had better bear in mind that the advanced preemptive strike of our own style will reduce everything … to debris, not just setting them on fire,” a spokesman of North Korea’s army was quoted as saying.
At the same time, he made Seoul responsible for the distribution of anti-communist propaganda leaflets dropped over North Korea by southern activists.
Should this “smear campaign with sheer fabrications” continue, the North’s army would “take a resolute practical action as we have already warned”, the official said.
The North Korean news agency charged members of the South Korean government, among them Defence Minister Lee Sang Hee, with planning an attack against the North, any attempts of which, it said, would be met by preemptive strikes.
The communist state has been stepping up its rethoric against the South over the past weeks, threatening to cut all ties. At a meeting of representatives of both countries’ armies Monday, North Korea again accused the government in Seoul of not stepping in to stop the anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaigns.
On the same day, South Korean activists said they sent helium-filled balloons with more than 100,000 leaflets toward North Korea, calling for resistance against the regime.
Bilateral relations have deteriorated since the conservative government of President Lee Myun Bak took office in Seoul in February, leading to a freeze in high-level talks by the North.