N.Korea says war with South would go nuclear

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea warned that another war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, as diplomatic efforts continued Friday to ease high tensions over its atomic ambitions and deadly artillery attack.

The military also threatened to strike back if South Korea goes ahead with a planned live-fire drill on a border island, state media reported.

Uriminzokkiri, the official website of the communist state, said in a commentary seen Friday that war on the Korean peninsula is only a matter of time.

"Because of the South Koreans' reckless war policies, it is not about war or peace on the Korean peninsula but when the war will break out," the website said.

"If war breaks out, it will lead to nuclear warfare and not be limited to the Korean peninsula," it said in a posting dated Thursday.

The North frequently claims nuclear war is imminent. But military tensions have risen sharply since it bombarded South Korea's Yeonpyeong border island on November 23, killing two marines and two civilians.

Pyongyang's disclosure last month of an apparently working uranium enrichment plant -- a potential new source of bomb-making material -- also heightened regional security fears.

In a separate commentary, the North's ruling communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun Friday described the peninsula as the world's most dangerous place.

It reiterated calls for a formal peace treaty with Washington and the withdrawal of 28,500 US troops from South Korea.

"The Korean peninsula remains a region fraught with the greatest danger of war in the world," the paper said. "This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea)."

Prominent US politician Bill Richardson, a veteran troubleshooter with North Korea, is paying a private visit to Pyongyang to try to ease tensions.

And the US envoy to stalled six-party talks on the North's nuclear disarmament, Sung Kim, held talks in Seoul Friday with his South Korean counterpart Wi Sung-Lac.

In Beijing a US delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrapped up three days of discussions on the Korean peninsula situation.

Washington's embassy said the two sides had "useful conversations concerning shared interests in peace and stability in northeast Asia" as well as "the importance of realising the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

The United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia are members of the denuclearisation forum which the North abandoned in April 2009, a month before its second atomic weapons test.

Host China along with Russia is trying to revive the forum to ease the crisis, and the North says it is willing to talk. But the United States, South Korea and Japan say the North must first mend ties with the South and show genuine seriousness about abandoning its nuclear drive.

The US and South Korea have staged a major naval show of strength to deter the North, and the South is preparing to hold a one-day live-fire artillery drill on Yeonpyeong sometime between Saturday and Tuesday.

A similar firing drill into the Yellow Sea on November 23 was answered by the North's deadly bombardment of villages on the island.

The South's military said its guns would be aimed away from the North as usual but it would respond strongly if provoked.

Members of the US-led United Nations Command will observe the exercise, and about 20 US soldiers will play a supporting role.

But a top US general Thursday voiced concern over a possible "chain reaction".

General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the drill was being held on a "well-established and well-used" range in a transparent way, but could draw a North Korean reaction.

"What we worry about obviously is... if North Korea were to react to that in a negative way and fire back at those firing positions on the islands, that would start potentially a chain reaction," Cartwright told reporters.

"What you don't want to have happen out of that is for... us to lose control of the escalation."

Amid the continuing tensions, Japan said it would strengthen missile defences against the threat from North Korea. Its major strategic review announced Friday describes the North as an "urgent, grave factor for instability".