North Korea Warns Of War

North Korea said Monday that the signing of a nonaggression treaty with the United States is the only way to prevent a war on the Korean Peninsula.

The North's strident statements follow a week of increased tension with the United States, over a shipment of Scud missiles to Yemen and a vow to resume a banned nuclear development program.

North Korea has repeatedly requested the nonaggression pact, but Washington has ruled out talks with North Korea unless it abandons it nuclear ambitions. Monday's remarks were similar to anti-U.S. rhetoric often issued by the communist country's state media.

Raising fears of a crisis along the world's last Cold War frontier, North Korea said last week it will reactivate plutonium-based nuclear facilities that U.S. officials believe could be used to make weapons.

That followed revelations in October that the North had also been pursuing a different, uranium-based nuclear program. The North says both programs are intended to increase civilian power supplies in the fact of frigid temperatures.

"Now the situation of the Korean Peninsula is on the verge of war," North Korea's official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a report carried by the state news agency, KCNA.

"The only way to preventing a catastrophic crisis of a war … is to conclude a nonaggression treaty between North Korea and the U.S. at an early date," it said

Also Monday, the North accused the United States of blocking food aid after its announcement to reactivate nuclear facilities frozen under a 1994 agreement with Washington.

"The United States has so far claimed that aid to (North Korea) had nothing to do with the `nuclear issue,'" a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said in another KCNA report.

"But … even (U.S.) government officials are openly asserting that it cannot give aid to the DPRK unless it meets such unreasonable conditions including the `opening of the whole country,'" the unidentified spokesman said, referring to the North by its official name — the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Washington said earlier this month that its future food aid to North Korea will be linked to the communist country's willingness to open more of its territory to international workers to monitor distribution.

U.S. officials insist the new conditions on food deliveries are not connected with the nuclear issue.

With its economy in shambles, North Korea has depended on outside aid since 1995 to feed its 22 million people. The United States donates food through the U.N. World Food Program.

International aid workers complain that they are denied access to large areas of the country. Some suspect that outside food might be diverted to the North's military. The North denies it.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller reports the White House says it is agreeable to a dialogue with North Korea but not negotiations that stem from threats or broken agreements.

President Bush discussed the issue with his South Korean counterpart Kim Dae-jung on Friday. The two expressed their hope that the crisis could be resolved through peaceful means.

While North Korea, like Iraq, is part of the "Axis of Evil" named by Mr. Bush earlier this year, the Bush administration has steered clear of any threats of military action on the peninsula.

Bush aides have said North Korea poses a unique challenge require a different approach than taken with Baghdad.