Pyongyang:
North Korea welcomed the new year on Saturday with a push for better ties with rival South Korea, warning that war "will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust."
Despite calls in its annual New Year's message for a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the North, which has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006, also said its military was ready for "prompt, merciless and annihilatory action" against its enemies.
In Pyongyang on Saturday APTN North Korea filmed residents laying flowers at the foot of a giant statue of their country's founding leader Kim Il Sung to celebrate the new year.
Kim Il Sung died in 1994 but is still accorded the title of "Eternal President".
The North's holiday message - scrutinised by officials and analysts in neighbouring countries for policy clues - comes in the wake of its November 23 artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island near the countries' disputed western sea border.
That barrage, which followed an alleged North Korean torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, sent tensions between the Koreas soaring and fuelled fears of war during the last weeks of 2010.
In a joint editorial in three newspapers, carried in the official Korean Central News Agency, the North said confrontation between the two Koreas should be quickly defused and called for a push to improve Korean relations.
South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, said its officials were analysing the North's message; it had no immediate comment.
Four South Koreans, including two civilians, were killed in the November shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, which North Korea carried out after warning Seoul against conducting live-fire drills there.
The attack was the first on a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The South Korean government has strengthened security and deployed additional troops and weaponry to Yeonpyeong, which lies just seven miles (11 kilometres) from North Korean shores.
North Korea does not recognise the maritime border drawn by the UN in 1953, and it claims the waters around the island as its own.
The Korean peninsula remains technically in a state of war because the conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The newsreader on North Korean state television on Saturday also announced that the country seeks "denuclearisation of the whole of the Korean peninsula".
Six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme have been stalled for nearly two years.
The North has previously used aggression to force negotiations.
Recently, it has said it is willing to return to the talks.
Washington and Seoul, however, are insisting that the North make progress on past disarmament commitments before negotiations can resume.
North Korea also stoked new worries about its nuclear programme in November when it revealed a uranium enrichment facility - which could give it a second way to make atomic bombs.
North Korea is believed to have enough weaponised plutonium for at least a half-dozen atomic bombs.
Despite calls in its annual New Year's message for a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the North, which has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006, also said its military was ready for "prompt, merciless and annihilatory action" against its enemies.
In Pyongyang on Saturday APTN North Korea filmed residents laying flowers at the foot of a giant statue of their country's founding leader Kim Il Sung to celebrate the new year.
Kim Il Sung died in 1994 but is still accorded the title of "Eternal President".
The North's holiday message - scrutinised by officials and analysts in neighbouring countries for policy clues - comes in the wake of its November 23 artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island near the countries' disputed western sea border.
That barrage, which followed an alleged North Korean torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, sent tensions between the Koreas soaring and fuelled fears of war during the last weeks of 2010.
In a joint editorial in three newspapers, carried in the official Korean Central News Agency, the North said confrontation between the two Koreas should be quickly defused and called for a push to improve Korean relations.
South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, said its officials were analysing the North's message; it had no immediate comment.
Four South Koreans, including two civilians, were killed in the November shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, which North Korea carried out after warning Seoul against conducting live-fire drills there.
The attack was the first on a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The South Korean government has strengthened security and deployed additional troops and weaponry to Yeonpyeong, which lies just seven miles (11 kilometres) from North Korean shores.
North Korea does not recognise the maritime border drawn by the UN in 1953, and it claims the waters around the island as its own.
The Korean peninsula remains technically in a state of war because the conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The newsreader on North Korean state television on Saturday also announced that the country seeks "denuclearisation of the whole of the Korean peninsula".
Six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme have been stalled for nearly two years.
The North has previously used aggression to force negotiations.
Recently, it has said it is willing to return to the talks.
Washington and Seoul, however, are insisting that the North make progress on past disarmament commitments before negotiations can resume.
North Korea also stoked new worries about its nuclear programme in November when it revealed a uranium enrichment facility - which could give it a second way to make atomic bombs.
North Korea is believed to have enough weaponised plutonium for at least a half-dozen atomic bombs.
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