"This is an act of overtly going against the trend of the national history toward reconciliation and reunification," Pyongyang's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said.

The reference, in a 2005 White Paper published Feb. 4, was "an intolerable challenge to the North," the committee said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

"If the South Korean authorities truly hope for improved North-South relations and have a willingness to implement the joint declaration, they should discard the theory of 'principal enemy' against the North," it said.

The South Korean government had suspended publication of the White Paper since 2001 after Pyongyang protested over the paper's reference to North Korea as its "main enemy."

But Pyongyang said Feb. 5 that the notion of "substantial military threat" was nothing but another conception of "main enemy."

The Japan Times Weekly: Feb. 12, 2005
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