N. Korea rallies against South following U.S. nuke deal

PanARMENIAN.Net - North Korea threatened "sacred war" against the South in a huge rally in the capital on Sunday, March 4 just days after the secretive state agreed with the United States to suspend its nuclear weapons tests and allow back international nuclear inspectors.

Tens of thousands of slogan-chanting North Koreans rallied in Pyongyang vowing to "wipe out" South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's "traitors" whom they accused of defaming their new leader, Kim Jong-un, and of staging inflammatory war games with the United States.

North and South Korea are still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Pyongyang's state media has recently beefed up the rhetoric against South Korea's Lee and military leaders, accusing them of allowing an army unit to hang portraits of the two Kims and "scrawl unspeakable defamatory words" below them.

North Korea regularly warns of retaliation against Seoul and Washington for joint military drills, currently under way, which it sees as an unforgivable provocation.

In 2010, the North shelled a South Korean island near the disputed inter-Korean sea border, killing four people, in retaliation for live-fire exercises by the South.

Many North Korea watchers say the sabre-rattling is aimed at consolidating Kim's grip on power and attaining an advantage in the latest round of disarmament-for-aid talks with the United States.

On Wednesday, Washington and Pyongyang announced the North had agreed to suspend nuclear tests, uranium enrichment and long-range missile launches and to allow checks by international nuclear watchdog inspectors in return for food aid. -DJ-