North Korea threatens South Korea with ‘holy war’
By DPA, IANSFriday, January 15, 2010
SEOUL - North Korea Friday threatened to cut off all dialogue with South Korea following reports that Seoul had revised a contingency plan to deal with the potential collapse of Pyongyang’s Stalinist regime.
In a statement released by its state-run media, North Korea’s National Defence Commission vowed to wage a “pan-national holy war of retaliation” to blow away the South Korean government.
The commission, headed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, reacted to South Korean news reports that Seoul had dusted off a plan on how to deal with the collapse of the North’s regime.
South Korean newspapers reported the plan includes five scenarios such as a coup or revolution, a military attack on North Korea from the outside or the death of Kim Jong Il.
“This is a plan to topple our republic,” Pyongyang said in the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
The threat came after months of Pyongyang softening its diatribes against Seoul. On Thursday, the Communist state proposed talks on resurrecting joint tourism programmes.
Shortly before the threat was released, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said the North’s Red Cross accepted Seoul’s offer of 10,000 tonnes of food.
