Rodong Sinmun Monday observes in a signed commentary in this regard:

This is nothing but a despicable behavior of those hell bent on confrontation with fellow countrymen and a treacherous move revealing a design of the traitors to steadily bedevil the inter-Korean relations and indefinitely stand in confrontation with the DPRK.

All Koreans in the north and the south and abroad hope to see the strained inter-Korean relations mended as early as possible. Dialogue and contact in a number of fields including Red Cross humanitarian work are taking place between the north and the south.

It is against this backdrop that the GNP is persistently insisting that the DPRK should be defined in the above-said white paper, swimming against the trend of the times.

The south Korean authorities' attempt to specify the DPRK as the "principal enemy" in the "defense white paper" is little short of officially declaring the confrontation with the DPRK and a war of aggression against it as a policy.

The successive groups of the GNP have taken the lead in stoking the confrontation with compatriots, opposed to reconciliation and unity between the north and the south, the commentary recalls, and goes on: The issue of the inter-Korean relations, an important matter of the nation, can never be a plaything of a tiny handful of the south Korean conservative group.

The GNP would be well advised to discard its treacherous conception hostile to compatriots if it is to shake off its ill fame of being a party keen on confrontation against reunification.