Fidel Castro advises ally N. Korea against war

PanARMENIAN.Net - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro warned ally North Korea against war on Friday, April 5 and described the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula as one of the "gravest risks" for nuclear holocaust since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, according to Reuters.

Saying he spoke as a friend, Castro wrote in Cuban state media that North Korea, led by 30-year-old Kim Jong-un, had shown the world its technical prowess and now it was time to remember its duties to others.

North Korea, which along with Cuba is one of the world's last communist countries, has been ratcheting up pressure by declaring war on neighbor South Korea and threatening to stage a nuclear strike on the United States.

Few observers believe it will actually attack anyone, but Castro has become an anti-nuclear advocate in recent years.

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was always friendly with Cuba, as Cuba always has been and will continue to be with her," Castro wrote, using an almost paternalistic tone.

"Now that it has demonstrated its technical and scientific advances, we remind it of its duties to other countries who have been great friends and that it would not be just to forget that such a war would affect in a special way more than 70 percent of the world's population," said the 86-year-old, who turned Cuba communist after taking power in a 1959 revolution.

Castro called the present situation on the Korean Peninsula "incredible and absurd," but said "it has to do with one of the gravest risks of nuclear war since the Crisis of October (Cuban Missile Crisis), 50 years ago."