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NKorea lashes out at SKorea's leader 'Lee'

SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea Tuesday launched its first verbal attack on new South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, saying his tougher policy towards the nation could have "catastrophic consequences."

The lengthy and vitriolic attack, describing the conservative leader as a US sycophant and a traitor, comes as tensions are rising between the two nations.

On Sunday the North's official media claimed that Seoul was planning a preemptive military strike and threatened to turn South Korea into "ashes" if it went ahead.

In recent days the North has also expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex, test-fired missiles, accused Seoul of breaching a disputed sea border and threatened to suspend all dialogue.

Media reports say sorties by the North's jet fighters have also increased near the heavily fortified border.

[South Korean] President Lee, who took office five weeks ago after winning elections in December, has pledged a tougher line against North Korea, including linking economic aid to the impoverished nation to its nuclear disarmament. (Lee has said that South Korea will stop all economic aid to the North unless the North gets rid of all its nukes and changes its human rights standards)

Tuesday's commentary in Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper of the ruling communist party, described Lee's policy as a "declaration of war", and also blasted his intention to press the North on its human rights record.

"Lee Myung-Bak should not misjudge the patience and silence so far kept by the DPRK (North Korea)," it declared.

"The Lee regime will be held fully accountable for the irrevocable catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the freezing of inter-Korean relations and the disturbance of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula due to its sycophancy towards the US and its moves for confrontation with the North."

[The South Korean] Grand National Party (GNP), responding late Monday to the "ashes" threat, called on the North to stop "blackmailing" the South.

"We should face North Korea's military threat dauntlessly and resolutely," the party said in a statement.

Analysts say the North may be trying to sway the South's April 9 [parliamentary] election. The GNP wants to win a parliamentary majority over liberal rivals who practised a decade-long "sunshine" engagement policy towards Pyongyang.

They say the North may also want to undermine Lee before his first summit with US President George W. Bush this month.

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