N. Korea warns war will bring ‘nuclear holocaust’

Despite calls in its annual New Year’s message for a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the North, which has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006, also said its military was ready for “prompt, merciless and annihilatory action” against its enemies.

The North’s holiday message — scrutinized by officials and analysts in neighboring countries for policy clues — comes in the wake of its Nov. 23 artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island near the countries’ disputed western sea border.

That barrage, which followed an alleged North Korean torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, sent tensions between the Koreas soaring and fueled fears of war during the last weeks of 2010.

North Korea called for an end to confrontation with the South and urged a dialogue between the two countries. The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean peninsula,” said the message, which was emphatically read by a North Korean anchorwoman, wearing traditional Korean dress, in a state television broadcast monitored in Seoul. “If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”

SOURCE