A press release, read out at the conference, referred to the fact that Kim Thae Yong, minister of Defense, on Jan. 20 made such bellicose remarks as "preemptive strike" at the DPRK, clamoring about "nuclear attack" from it. This is a very dangerous outburst aimed to ignite a war on the Korean Peninsula at any cost, it said.

It branded him as a die-hard war maniac driving the situation on the peninsula to the crisis by letting loose a string of illegal and provocative remarks.

The theory of "preemptive strike" will result in screwing up the military tensions and increasing possibility of an all-out war on the peninsula, it warned, urging him to retract the reckless and bellicose remarks intended to plunge the nation into holocaust of nuclear war.

His reckless action is as good as deed of threatening peace and bedeviling the south-north relations, the release said, and went on:

We demand that the defense minister, a war maniac, step down from his office as he has been bedeviling the inter-Korean relations and chilling the peaceful atmosphere by unhesitatingly making provocative remarks calling for "preemptive strike".

We urge the present regime to roll back the policy for confrontation with fellow countrymen at once.

The authorities should be mindful that they will face the condemnation by the nation and the international isolation if they persist in swimming against the trend of the times.