N. Korea blasts S. Korea for rejecting news exchange amid frozen ties

By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Feb. 14 (Yonhap) -- North Korea accused South Korea Saturday of pretending
to seek dialogue while blocking reconciliation, slamming President Lee Myung-bak
for his government's recent decision to turn down a news exchange agreement.
South Korea said early this month it will not approve an October 2008 deal
between journalist groups from the two divided states to share articles, photos
and videos through their Web sites.
The Unification Ministry, which governs inter-Korean affairs, expressed concern
that the North may use the deal as a vehicle to spread its communist propaganda
to the South.
North Korea strictly controls its press and uses it to tout its regime that
practices a massive cult of personality for leader Kim Jong-il. It also claims to
be a nuclear-armed state ready to defeat the United States and South Korea. About
28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in the South as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean
War.
The disapproval is "an act that confronts the nation against each other, running
against the wishes of reconciliation and unification," the North's official
Korean Central Broadcasting Station said.
The South Korean "language calling for talks and cooperation" to resolve frozen
ties is only a deception, the report said, quoting a statement by the North
Korean Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, an organ of the ruling
Workers' Party.
The report also warned of grave consequences, with tension running high along the
border after North Korea ditched all military agreements with the South last
month.
The ties between the sides eroded quickly after South Korean President Lee took
office early last year with a disciplinary stance on the North.
Lee's conservative supporters say South Korea had too long funneled aid into the
impoverished nation that continues to hold onto its military-first policy and
refuses to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
Lee has largely tied progress in North Korean denuclearization to reconciliation
since his February inauguration, and the North accuses him of trying to topple
its regime.
Under the October agreement, South Korean news reports would have been published
on North Korea's official Web site, Uriminzokkiri, which would have sent its own
reports to a South Korean site in exchange.
The previous liberal administration in Seoul approved a similar news exchange
deal in 2007, allowing South Korea's private Tongil News to exchange articles
with Uriminzokkiri.
The two Koreas remain in a technical state of conflict after the Korean War ended
in a truce instead of a peace treaty. North Korea conducted its first known
atomic test in 2006.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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