preemptive strike' plan

North Korea on Sunday lashed out at South Korea's plan to launch a "preemptive strike" to thwart any nuclear attack from Pyongyang as an "open declaration of war," state media said. The North's General Staff of the Korean People's Army said the South Korean defence chief's recent remarks on a preemptive strike had created a "grave situation" which could lead to war "at any moment."
"They (the armed forces) will take prompt and decisive military actions against any attempt of the South Korean puppet authorities... and blow up the major targets including the commanding centre," it said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
The North's warning came days after the South's Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young reiterated that Seoul would launch a preemptive strike to frustrate any nuclear attacks by the communist regime.
"We would have to strike right away if we detected a clear intention to attack (South Korea) with nuclear weapons," Kim told a Seoul forum on Wednesday.
"It would be too late and the damage would be too big if, in the case of a North Korean nuclear attack, we had to cope with the attack."
The North warned in the statement Sunday that the armed forces regarded this as the South's "state policy" and was "an open declaration of war."
Kim made similar remarks in 2008 when he was chairman of the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
North Korea also reacted angrily at the time, temporarily expelling South Korean officials from a Seoul-funded industrial park at Kaesong just north of the heavily fortified border.
International efforts to bring Pyongyang back to six-party nuclear disarmament talks have so far made little headway.
North Korea abandoned the talks last April, a month before defiantly conducting a second atomic bomb test following its first in 2006, which soon led to United Nations sanctions on the communist state.
Its foreign ministry repeated last week that it would not return to the talks with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan until the sanctions are lifted.
The ministry also renewed a demand for early discussions on a peace pact aimed at formally ending the 1950-1953 war.
The United States and South Korea have rejected the demands, saying the North must first come back to the disarmament talks and show it is serious about scrapping its atomic programmes.
US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell will visit Japan and South Korea early next month to discuss regional security issues including ways to revive the six-party talks.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said Friday he hopes talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament can resume next month, but reaffirmed that sanctions will remain in force until progress is made.
He said China and other participants were making efforts to restart the six-nation talks last held in December 2008.
"I hope the six-party talks may resume before or after the Lunar New Year (February 13-15)," Yu told journalists.