NKorea threatens to attack SKorea if ships are searched

 NKorea threatens to attack SKorea if ships are searched

Seoul, May 27
North Korea, facing international censure for this week's nuclear test, threatened on Wednesday to attack the South after it joined a U.S.-led plan to check vessels suspected of carrying equipment for weapons of mass destruction.

In Moscow, news agencies quoted an official as saying that Russia is taking precautionary security measures because it fears mounting tensions over the test could escalate to war.Adding to mounting tension in the region, South Korean media reported that Pyongyang had restarted a plant that makes plutonium that can be used in nuclear bombs. North Korea's latest threat came after Seoul announced, following the North's nuclear test on Monday, it was joining the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, launched under the George W. Bush administration as a part of its "war on terror".

"Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels including, search and seizure will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty and we will immediately respond with a powerful military strike," a North Korean army spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.

He reiterated that the North was no longer bound by an armistice signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War because Washington had ignored its responsibility as a signatory by drawing Seoul into the anti-proliferation effort.

Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who called him on Wednesday, that Russia would work with Seoul on a new UN. Security Council resolution. Japan's upper house of parliament denounced the test and said in a resolution the government should step up its sanctions. — Reuters