North Korea steps up warnings against South!
SEOUL, South Korea - January 20, 2009 - North Korea, which analysts suspect is trying hard to grab the attention of incoming U.S. President Barack Obama, on Tuesday accused the South of driving the divided peninsula back into war.
It is the latest verbal onslaught against South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who on Monday put the architect of the policy that has so angered the North in charge of relations between the two Koreas.
"It goes without saying that Lee Myung-bak is the one who has driven the bellicosity high," the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried on North Korea's KCNA news agency.
South Korea has placed its military - backed by some 28,000 U.S. troops in the South - on high alert and warned of possible conflicts off the west coast of the peninsula, which has been the scene of deadly naval disputes in the past, after Pyongyang said it would wipe out its neighbor.
"Only those who made up their minds to start a war can say this nonsense. This is hysterical madness and the situation is grave," the newspaper added.
Analysts say the secretive North, which often uses key events when it wants to make a point to the outside world, is using its latest surge in furious rhetoric to try to attract the attention of Obama, who was inaugurated today.
