hankyoreh

Dec. 31. From left

North Korea called Saturday to defusing tension with South Korea, warning of a “nuclear holocaust” should another war break out on the peninsula, as the impoverished communist state made its last annual pitch for economic revival ahead of a landmark year.

A joint New Year’s editorial by the North Korean press did not make clear allusions to the country’s ongoing hereditary succession nor did it repeat the 2010 call for ending the state of enmity with the United States even though it did renew a pledge for denuclearization.

The editorial, considered a blueprint for Pyongyang’s policy goals, came amid the highest level of animosity between the Koreas in decades after North Korea bombarded a South Korean island on Nov. 23, killing four people in one of the worst attacks since the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Confrontation between north and south should be defused as early as possible,” North Korea said in the editorial jointly released by Rodong Sinmun, Joson Inmingun and Chongnyon Jonwi.

The New Year's message came after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak expressed his hope earlier this week for the resumption of multilateral denuclearization-for-aid talks on the North. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson of the United States visited North Korea last month and won a pledge from North Korea to allow the return of international nuclear monitors on its soil.

(Yonhap News Agency)

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