N. Korea vows to retaliate against Seoul's 'confrontational' policy

SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Saturday that it will go ahead with its plan to retaliate against South Korea unless Seoul changes its "confrontational policy" toward the communist country.

Inter-Korean relations have chilled since South Korea's conservative government
of President Lee Myung-bak took office in February with a vow to get tough on
North Korea.
North Korea is especially angry at refusal by Lee's government to honor a spate
of cross-border economic projects that were agreed on between leaders of the two
sides in 2000 and 2007. Those projects would require massive South Korean
investment in the impoverished communist state.
Earlier this month, North Korea declared that it will strictly restrict border
crossings starting Dec. 1 in protest at Lee's policy. The North already closed
its Red Cross mission and telephone links with South Korea at the truce village
of Panmunjom.
"As long as the Lee Myung-bak group keeps pursuing the reckless and dangerous
confrontational policy against the DPRK ... we are going to deal with this as
already proclaimed," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the
Fatherland said in a statement, using the country's official name, the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea.
The statement was carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, monitored in
Seoul.
North Korea also vented anger at the spreading of anti-Pyongyang leaflets by
balloons by South Korean activist groups.
Seoul has asked those activist groups to discontinue such activities but they
refused to comply with.
Attention is focused in South Korea on what action North Korea would take next.
Many worry that it may be against a South Korean-funded factory complex in the
communist country.
Currently, 83 small-sized South Korean garment and other labor-intensive plants
are operating at the complex at the North's border city of Kaesong with about
35,000 North Korean workers employed.
sshim@yna.co.kr
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