25-06-09 NKorea warns of 'dark clouds of nuclear war' on peninsula

North Korea warned Thursday that "dark clouds of nuclear war" are gathering over the peninsula and vowed to strengthen its atomic arsenal as it marked the anniversary of the 1950-1953 conflict.Rodong Sinmun,newspaper of the ruling communist party,accused the United States and its ally South Korea of trying to provoke another war with their pledge of a US nuclear "umbrella" over the South."A touch-and-go situation has been created on the Korean peninsula... with dark clouds of a nuclear war gathering as the hours tick by," it said in a lengthy commentary marking the anniversary,carried by the official news agency.The paper said a new war could break out any time and the North would continue to strengthen its nuclear arsenal."As long as the US hostile policy continues,we will never give up our nuclear deterrent and even strengthen it," Rodong said.The conflict began with a North Korean invasion on June 25,1950.It ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty,leaving the communist North and capitalist South still technically at war.North Korea marked "the day of the struggle against US imperialism" with a mass rally of 100,000 people in Pyongyang,the North's KCNA news agency said,although ailing leader Kim Jong-Il was not among those reported to have attended.The US headed a United Nations force which fought for the South against North Korean and Chinese troops."Of late the US has become evermore frantic in its moves to stifle the DPRK (North Korea) over its satellite launch for peaceful purposes and nuclear test for self-defence," Pak Pyong Jong,first vice chairman of the Pyongyang City People's Committee,said in a speech at the rally,KCNA reported