By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
A senior North Korean official urged South Korea Saturday to honor summit declarations on cross-border economic cooperation, criticizing the incumbent South Korean government's tougher stance on the North.
The remarks by Kim Young-dae, vice chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, comes amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula following recent moves by Pyongyang, including the test-firing of short-range missiles off the West Coast, to protest President Lee Myung-bak's approach toward the North.
President Lee has pledged his government will put big-ticket inter-Korean business programs, reached during the Oct. 4 summit in 2007 between former President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, on the backburner unless the North scraps its nuclear weapons programs.
In 2000, then-President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il held the first-ever summit talks in Pyongyang, laying the groundwork for cross-border economic cooperation programs.
According to North Korea's media (including Pyongyang Broadcast), Kim called the summit pacts the most ``reasonable and realistic'' agreements to help reunify the two Koreas. He strongly criticized Seoul for putting priority on relations with the United States, calling the South a ``traitor.''
Kim also claimed the South was increasing tension and threatened the North would take countermeasures.
South Korea did not respond to Kim's remarks.
The presidential office said last week that the government would not react to North Korea's remarks and would not to give in the North's trademark brinkmanship tactic.
Last Thursday, North Korea threatened to take ``military actions'' against the South, responding to South Korea's call for halting verbal attacks and any other moves to raise tension across the border.
The North's countermeasures would include banning South Korean officials from crossing the inter-Korean border and ending cross-border talks, South Korea's defense officials and North Korea experts said.
In the worst-case scenario, the North could test-launch short-range missiles off the western coast again or start gun battles near the western maritime border (Northern Limit Line), they said.