hankyoreh

North Korea demanded South Korea again to apologize for a remark by the country's top military officer that Seoul would consider attacking Pyongyang if the North tries to conduct a nuclear strike, a news report said Sunday.

Last Wednesday, the new head of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South was ready to hit the North's nuclear sites if Pyongyang attacks Seoul with nuclear weapons.

Since then, North Korea has repeatedly called on South Korea to retract the remark and apologize for making it.

Over the past week, North Korea has also stepped up its threats against conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's tougher policy towards the North, while expelling South Korean officials from an inter-Korean industrial complex in the North and test-firing several short-range missiles into waters off the west coast.

On Saturday, North Korea threatened to suspend all inter-Korean dialogue and contacts unless South Korea apologizes for the remark.

"If our style of advanced preemptive strike starts, everything will become ashes, not just a sea of fire," the North's Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.

North Korea doesn't consider the remark as an "accidental slip of the tongue" and it represents South Korea's "new confrontational policy" against North Korea, the commentary said, calling again for an apology by Seoul.

On Sunday, South Korea said it would decide whether to respond to the North Korean demands in the next few days.

"We are undaunted and will handle the issue on the basis of principles," a South Korean Defense Ministry official told reporters.

As part of the escalating threats, North Korea said last week it would slow down the process of disabling its nuclear facilities.

Some analysts said the North's actions indicated its unhappiness with the recently-inaugurated government of President Lee.

Lee, who took office last month, has pledged to reconsider large-scale inter-Korean economic cooperation projects unless North Korea lives up to its promise to denuclearize.

In a significant shift from his two liberal predecessors, Lee has said he wouldn't avoid raising sensitive issues such as human rights, prisoners of war and abductees in the North.

SEOUL, March 30 (Yonhap)