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SEOUL : North Korea called Thursday for a stronger military and lashed out at South Korea's "treacherous" conservative government in a policy-setting New Year editorial message.
The hardline communist state, however, reaffirmed its commitment to denuclearisation and regional peace. It omitted any criticism of the United States in the run-up to the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama.
After a year marked by persistent speculation about the health of leader Kim Jong-Il, the joint editorial stressed the country's purported political stability under what it called "a great strategist and peerless statesman."
It acknowledged economic shortcomings and hardships, calling for efforts to put production on what it called a normal track.
"A radical turn should be brought about in the efforts to improve the people's living standard," said the joint editorial in the newspapers of the ruling party, army and youth league.
"To relieve scarcity of food is a pressing problem."
The editorial stressed the Songun (army first) policy, which prioritises the welfare of the 1.1 million-strong military over civilians.
"The habit of giving priority to arms, military affairs, should be established more thoroughly in the whole of society," the editorial said, according to excerpts on the English service of the official Korean Central News Agency.
"Great efforts should constantly be put to the development of the defence industry as required by the line of economic construction in the Songun era and everything necessary be provided for it on a preferential basis."
Six-nation negotiations on scrapping the North's nuclear weapons programme are stalled by a dispute over how the North's disclosures of its atomic activity should be checked.
Relations with South Korea worsened after conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took office in February and promised to take a firmer line in cross-border relations.
Lee said he would link major economic aid to progress in denuclearisation, a stance which enraged Pyongyang. It has cut off almost all official contacts with Seoul and in December imposed tight new border controls.
The editorial slammed Lee's government for failing to commit to summit accords signed between Pyongyang and previous liberal administrations in Seoul.
Seoul's rulers, it said, seek to "restore the era of fascist dictatorship and are hell-bent on inter-Korean confrontation."
The editorial exhorted South Koreans to "make more dynamic efforts to put an end to the fascist rule of the sycophantic and treacherous conservative authorities and remove the danger of war."
- AFP /ls
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