North Korea: War Would Bring 'Nuclear Holocaust'

North Korea welcomed the new year today with a call 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 communist North, which has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006, also said its military is ready for "prompt, merciless and annihilatory action" against its enemies.

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, said the editorial carried in the official Korean Central News Agency, even with its tough rhetoric, showed the North's interest in resuming talks with the South, and President Lee Myung-bak said in a televised New Year's address he would work toward peace. North Korea said in its editorial that confrontation between the Koreas should be quickly defused. (More North Korea stories.)