North Korea warned Wednesday it would take unspecified actions against South Korea over next month's nuclear security summit to be held in Seoul, calling the event "an intolerable grave provocation."
South Korea is scheduled to host the second Nuclear Security Summit from March 26 through 27 to bolster international safeguards and help prevent nuclear terrorism. The meeting is scheduled to bring together top leaders from about 50 nations, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who hosted the first summit in Washington in 2010.
North Korea's three committees on peace condemned the South's hosting of the summit as "an unpardonable crime" and "an intolerable grave provocation" aimed at the North, according to an English-language report by the official (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"We will never overlook such nuclear confab doing harm to the dignified DPRK ... but decisively smash the anti-DPRK nuclear racket by disturbers and wreckers of peace," the committees said in the joint statement, referring to the North by the initials of its official name. The statement did not elaborate further.
South Korea plans to mobilize about 40,000 police officers and an unidentified number of troops during the summit to guard against possible provocations by North Korea or terrorists, according to South Korean officials.
The latest warning comes a day after the KCNA reported North Korea's new leader Kim Jong-un had inspected a military base believed to oversee missile units.
Tensions persist on the Korean Peninsula following two deadly attacks by the North against the South in 2010. The North recently threatened military action against South Korea over live-fire drills near their disputed western sea border earlier this week, although no clash occurred.
The statement also said the summit "will only lay one more stumbling block to the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula."
The warning came a day before North Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan is to meet his U.S. counterpart Glyn Davies in Beijing in what could be the third round of high-level talks between the two sides.
The crucial session, which is the first between the two countries since the December death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, could offer a chance for Washington to gauge whether Kim's youngest son and new leader Kim Jong-un will abandon his country's nuclear ambitions.
North Korea's nuclear weapons programs are not on the agenda of the summit, although South Korean officials have said Pyongyang's nuclear programs can be discussed on the sidelines of the forum. (Yonhap)
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