N. Korea vows to retaliate if S. Korea goes ahead with live-fire drills+

PYONGYANG/SEOUL, Dec. 17 Kyodo -
North Korea's military vowed Friday to retaliate in self-defense against South
Korea if it goes ahead with a planned live-fire artillery exercise from a
frontline island that was shelled by the North's military last month.
But South Korea's Defense Ministry said later Friday it will proceed with the
exercise on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, dismissing the North's
''threats and unreasonable demands.''
''The puppet military warmongers should take a prompt measure to stop the
planned provocative maritime shelling,'' North Korea's official media said in
quoting from a notice sent by the Korean People's Army to the South earlier in
the day.
''In case they conduct the above-said shelling at last despite the warning
served by the KPA in advance, it will deal the second and third unpredictable
self-defensive blow at them to protect the inviolable territorial waters (of
North Korea) as it had declared before the world,'' the notice said, according
to the Korean Central News Agency
''It will be deadlier than what was made on Nov. 23 in terms of the
powerfulness and sphere of the strike,'' it added.
South Korea has said it will hold the drill on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow
Sea between Saturday and Tuesday, with the day chosen on the basis of weather
and other conditions.
North Korea claims its Nov. 23 attack on the same island, which killed four
people, was in retaliation for an earlier live-fire drill by South Korea during
which shells fell into what the North claims at its territorial waters.
==Kyodo