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SEOUL : North Korea on Tuesday criticised South Korea for its planned commemoration in 2010 of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, calling it an "unpardonable provocation".
Seoul this month announced plans for a series of events, including the re-enactment of major battles such as the 1950 Incheon landing by US-led United Nations forces, which turned the tide of the conflict.
It plans to invite a total of 2,400 people including veterans and their relatives from 21 foreign countries between April and November.
"This is an unpardonable provocation to the DPRK (North Korea) and an intolerable criminal act of escalating the inter-Korean confrontation and tensions," said Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the North's ruling communist party.
"Through these farces the South Korean rulers seek to extol the US, which ignited the Korean War," it said, referring to the mock battles.
Pyongyang insists Washington was to blame for the three-year conflict, which began with the North's invasion of the South on June 25, 1950.
The United States led a United Nations force which fought for the South, while China sent troops to support the North.
The newspaper also took issue with what it said were new defence guidelines to be agreed by South Korea and its US ally next year. It said such guidelines were a scenario for aggression under the pretext of defence.
Rodong Sinmun said the North would "never remain an onlooker to the frantic moves stepped up by the South Korean warmongers to launch a war".
If South Korean authorities "keep escalating the tensions and the danger of war... they will have to pay dearly for them".
Cross-border relations worsened sharply after a conservative government took office in Seoul in February 2008 and linked major aid to the North's progress in nuclear disarmament.
But Pyongyang has put out some peace feelers in recent months. - AFP/ms
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