The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea issued a statement on May 27 in this regard.

It said:

The so-called PSI is a mechanism for a war of aggression built by the U.S. against the DPRK under the pretext of intercepting and blockading ships and planes, etc. suspicious of transporting weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons and missiles.

The PSI has been criticized and repudiated at home and abroad for its aggressive nature and illegality.

Moreover, full participation in the PSI by a side on the Korean Peninsula where the state of military confrontation is growing acute and there is constant danger of military conflict itself means igniting a war.

The DPRK, therefore, has already seriously warned the south Korean authorities against the above-said moves and repeatedly clarified its stand that it would strongly counter those moves of the Lee group, in particular, regarding them as a declaration of a war as it is pursuant to its American master's policy.

Nevertheless, the Lee group undisguisedly took a step of fully participating in the PSI, which former regimes dared not do so, bringing the situation on the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean relations beyond the uncontrollable danger line of a war.

It is preposterous for the Lee group to have opted to fully participate in the PSI under the pretext of the underground nuclear test of the DPRK for self-defense.

It is nothing strange and quite natural for a nuclear weapons state to conduct a nuclear test.

The anti-DPRK racket kicked up by the U.S. and its followers under that pretext is not truly aimed at the nuclear non-proliferation but prompted by their black-hearted intention to stifle the DPRK.

Now that the south Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots through their full participation in the PSI, the DPRK is compelled to take a decisive measure, as it has already warned.

The DPRK solemnly declares as follows in view of the prevailing situation:

First, The DPRK will deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow, no matter from which place, at any attempt to stop, check and inspect its vessels, regarding it as a violation of its inviolable sovereignty and territory and a grave provocation to it.

Second, The DPRK will take such a practical counter-action as in the wartime now that the south Korean authorities declared a war in wanton violation of its dignity and sovereignty by fully participating in the PSI.

The DPRK will never pardon the south Korean puppet group of traitors for going mad with confrontation and war, bereft of any reason as servants for outside forces in the moves for a war of aggression.

The Lee Myung Bak group will be held wholly accountable for the disastrous consequences to be entailed by its reckless hostile acts against the DPRK.