NKorea warns Seoul of 'catastrophic consequences'

by Alex Jensen

SEOUL

 North Korea threatened South Korea with a "final showdown" on Thursday -- exactly 65 years since the start of the Korean War.

The two sides are still technically in a state of conflict, having never reached a peace treaty.

Pyongyang had been enraged in recent weeks by the scheduled opening of a United Nations human rights office in Seoul -- a plan that came to fruition on Tuesday.

Chief among the aims of the office is to monitor North Korea, based on the recommendation of a U.N. report last year amid evidence of concentration camps and widespread torture in the reclusive state.

A statement from a North Korean reunification committee warned South Korean President Park Geun-hye that she "will have to entirely take the blame for all the ensuing catastrophic consequences in the North-South relations from this moment."

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland had already threatened to respond to the U.N. facility's opening with a "merciless" punishment.

A South Korean unification ministry official viewed the latest threat as "deplorable," according to local news agency Yonhap.

As a NATO member, Turkey aided South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, Turkey sending nearly 15,000 soldiers to fight on the South’s side.

Meanwhile, North Korea has apparently set up "around 10" buoys near the inter-Korean western maritime border.

The revelation from a South Korean defense ministry spokesperson suggests that the North is taking steps to ensure that it does not trespass south of the border -- even though Pyongyang does not officially recognize the current position of the so-called Northern Limit Line.

The border area has been the scene of heightened tensions and even bloodshed in recent years.