North Korean official media on Tuesday denounced President Lee Myung-bak as a "traitor" in a new twist to increasing attempts to ratchet up tensions between the two sides. The Workers Party's Rodong Shinmun newspaper also rejected Lee's plan to help North Korea raise annual per-capita gross national income to US$3,000 if the communist country scraps its nuclear programs and opens up to the outside world as an "anti-unification declaration." It was the first time in eight years the North Korean media denounced a South Korean president by name. A Cheong Wa Dae official said this was "inappropriate." But another presidential official said South Korea will not specifically respond until after the April 9 general election and the Seoul-Washington summit.
In a commentary entitled "The South Korean Authorities Will Reap Only Destruction from Confrontation" with North Korea, the daily mentioned Lee's name as many as 49 times, calling him an "impostor", a "fraud" and a "traitor." "The Lee regime will be held fully accountable for the irrevocable catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the freezing of inter-Korean relations and the disturbance of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."