The statement denounced the military authorities for finally staging a provocative shelling exercise in Yonphyong Island on the same day.

It is a dangerous development that the authorities made hard-line remarks and staged military exercises one after another in the West Sea of Korea where the north and the south stand in acute confrontation, the statement held, adding:

The Lee Myung Bak regime can never be pardoned as it is evading the responsibility for bedeviled north-south relations and increasing the danger of a war.

The young people do not want a war which may claim lives of innocent people, the statement said, urging the authorities to stop the reckless moves for a war at once.