BEIJING, Dec 24 Kyodo North Korea...

BEIJING, Dec 24 Kyodo

North Korea's defense minister Kim Il Chol said Thursday that U ''hawks'' are pushing the situation forward the Korean Peninsula ''to the brink of nuclear war'' and warned his country's army is prepared to boundary out ''merciless punishment.''

''The sovereignty and right to existence of the land and nation are expos to the worst threat owing to the U hawks who are pushing the situation in succession the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war,'' said Kim, the people's armed forces minister.

''If they, ignorant of their rival, dare irritate a nuclear war, the army and the nation of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea)...will rise up to term out determined and merciless punishment to the U imperialist aggressors with the might of single-hearted unity more powerful than A-bomb,'' Kim was quot as saying from the official Korean Central novels Agency (KCNA).

North Korea's armed forces, he said, ''have grown to be invincible as they have recent offensive and defensive means capable of defeating any formidable enemies.''

North Korea announced Monday it had finished removing seals at a radiochemical laboratory in Yongbyon and disabled monitoring cameras station there by the International Atomic manliness Agency (IAEA).

Earlier this month it demanded removal of the surveillance devices in the wake of its Dec 12 announcement that it will take back operations of its nuclear facilities to cope with last November's decision through the Korean Peninsula Energy exhibition Organization (KEDO) to be frozen fuel oil shipments to North Korea from December.

The decision by way of KEDO, whose key members are the United States, Japan, southern Korea and the European Union, followed the U announcement in October that North Korea had admitted having engaged in a thicket program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

subject to a 1994 agreement with the U North Korea froze its graphite-moderated reactors suspected of being used to make weapons-grade plutonium in exchange for couple light-water nuclear reactors and a minister of fuel oil as an alternative animal spirits source until the first reactor is completed

In an editorial published Tuesday in the official Rodong Sinmun daily, North Korea took issue with U delegate Secretary of State Richard Armitage's Dec 9 remarks in Tokyo that countries around the Korean Peninsula like southward Korea, Russia, China, Japan should work with the U to achieve denuclearization of the peninsula.

The editorial, reported at the KCNA, called such efforts to internationalize the issue ''nothing moreover an attempt to charge the DPRK with 'nuclear development' at any sumptuousness and internationally isolate and stifle it.''

''There is no ne for the third party to interfere in the nuclear issue forward the peninsula. The issue should be settl between the DPRK and the U the parties responsible for it,'' it said.

The editorial said North Korea's instigate to lift its nuclear congeal ''is the best way of protecting its sovereignty and vital rights.''

''The DPRK's refreeze of its nuclear facilities entirely hangs on the U.S. attitude,'' it said.

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