North Korea accused South Korea of staging a military provocation on their heavily guarded border by moving a marker post.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the South Korean army recently moved a border marker closer to the North Korean side.
"This serious military provocation is a wanton violation of the Armistice Agreement and a deliberate and premeditated action to escalate tension in the areas along the MDL," it said, referring to the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which marks the borderline.
"The reckless provocation perpetrated at a time when the military confrontation between the north and the south has reached an extreme phase is a vicious criminal act of seriously getting on the nerves of the servicepersons of the Korean People's Army and lashing them into a great fury."
The statement came as tensions are running high over the North's rocket launch on April 5 and its withdrawal from six-party nuclear disarmament talks. Inter-Korean ties are also icy, with rare talks on Tuesday ending after just 22 minutes.
The MDL runs along the centre of a 4-km-wide (2.5 mile) buffer strip known as the Demilitarised Zone.
KCNA urged the South immediately to reposition the marker in its previous location.
"Should it not accept the just demand of the DPRK (North Korea), the latter will take a measure for self-defence and the South Korean warmongers will be held entirely accountable for all the ensuing consequences," it warned.
The North is angry at the conservative South Korean government, which rolled back the past liberal government's "sunshine" policy and linked economic aid to denuclearisation.
Copyright 2009  AFP Global Edition
