North Korea threatens to cut dialogue with South

North Korea threatened Friday to break off all dialogue with South Korea unless Seoul apologises for an alleged contingency plan to handle regime collapse in the communist state. In a day of mixed signals, the North also announced it would accept food aid which it had shunned for two years as political tensions with the South rose.
The North's powerful National Defence Commission (NDC), which is headed by leader Kim Jong-Il, denounced the alleged plan as a "crime" and said it would stage a "holy war" against those who drew it up. In a statement on Pyongyang's official news agency, it termed the alleged document a plan to overthrow its socialist system.
Unconfirmed South Korean news reports say officials in Seoul have drawn up a plan to administer the North in case of regime collapse, a coup or a popular uprising there. The NDC vowed that unless Seoul authorities apologise for the "crime" against the North, "they will be thoroughly excluded from any dialogue and negotiations aimed at improving inter-Korean ties and securing peace and stability on the Korean peninsula".
The North said Monday it wants talks with the United States on a treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War before it makes any further moves towards nuclear disarmament. It did not mention talks with South Korea about a pact to end the war, which concluded only with an armistice. Seoul has long been suspicious that Pyongyang wants to exclude it.
South Korea and the United States rejected the North's proposal for early peace talks, saying it must first return to a nuclear disarmament forum. The North abandoned the six-party forum in April, a month before staging a second nuclear test.
"A pan-national holy war will be staged aimed at eradicating the headquarters of South Korean authorities including the (presidential) Blue House which led in drawing up this plan," the NDC statement said without elaborating. It urged the South to disband its unification ministry and the National Intelligence Service, holding them responsible for drawing up the plan.
The South's unification ministry meanwhile said the North had accepted an offer of 10,000 tons of food aid which Seoul made back in October. The shipment, if it goes ahead, will be Seoul's first official aid to its hungry neighbour for two years. In 2008 the South offered 50,000 tons of corn but the North rejected the shipment amid high tensions. The North reacted furiously when Seoul's new conservative government took office in February 2008 and linked major economic aid to progress in nuclear disarmament.