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Pyongyang: Two Koreas on path toward war

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-01 16:59

SEOUL - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) warned on Sunday that the downward spiral of relations with South Korea has pushed the peninsula to the brink of war, two days after it said it was scrapping all pacts with its neighbour.

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"The policy of confrontation with the DPRK pursued by the (South Korean) group is ... the very source of military conflicts and war between the North and the South," DPRK's official KCNA news agency reported a commentary in a copy of newspaper as saying.

"In Korea in the state of armistice confrontation means escalated tension and it may lead to an uncontrollable and unavoidable military conflict and a war," it said.

The states, technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire and not a peace treaty, have more than 1 million troops near their border. There are about 28,000 US troops in South Korea to defend the country.

DPRK has clamped down on it border with the South in recent months and has cancelled cooperation deals reached during a period of detente in the past few years before Lee came to power.

The deals included reunions for separated families and running trains across the heavily guarded border.