According to a statement on Pyongyang´s official news agency, relations have become so confrontational they are on "the brink of war" because of the Seoul government´s policy of "unification through absorption".[break]
The statement, from a spokesman for the foreign ministry´s Disarmament and Peace Institute, said Seoul´s conservative rulers had reneged on previous agreements in principle to reunify under a federal system.
The current strategy aimed to disable the North´s nuclear deterrent, "force it into opening and destroy it in the end," the spokesman said.
It was prompted by the Seoul government´s "sinister intention" to see its neighbour´s system collapse.
The statement, using language often employed by Pyongyang, said Seoul´s efforts to win international support for unification through absorption are "a declaration of a war" against the North.
The South´s conservative President Lee Myung-Bak has stressed the need to prepare for reunification of the peninsula, which has been formally divided since 1948. He has proposed a tax in the South to prepare for such an event.
In June, Lee said unification "won´t take such a long time" but did not elaborate.
Ties have been frosty since Lee took over in 2008 from a left-leaning administration that practised a "sunshine" policy of aid and engagement.
They turned icy when Seoul accused Pyongyang last year of causing two deadly border incidents.
On Monday a private group of some 100 South Koreans announced a plan to open a satellite entertainment television station targeting North Koreans to promote unification.
They said Unification TV would offer dramas and entertainment shows for people in the isolated communist state to watch secretly.
"South Koreans and North Koreans, having been divided for 60 years, have become vastly different in sentiment, culture and lifestyle. We need cultural exchanges to narrow the differences," the group said in a statement.
"TV broadcasts are the most effective way to reduce differences and unite all Koreans together, while they laugh and cry together at the same TV show."
The group said the service will help people in the reclusive North feel closer to their southern peers and find more ways to relate to each other emotionally.
Hwang Kyu-Hwan, a former CEO of Seoul-based satellite TV station SkyLife, said the group aimed to begin broadcasting next year by raising at least five billion won ($4.6 million) from the government and private companies.
The unification ministry said it has no plans at present to fund the planned new station.
North Korea has battled for decades to exclude foreign news sources and culture. But pirated DVDs and music CDs smuggled in from China have made the South´s pop culture popular.
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