N. Korea Threatens To Retaliate For Story

North Korea threatened retaliation against South Korea today, accusing it of defaming the North’s leader by making up statements and attributing them to a prominent communist official who defected.

Seoul’s Joong-ang Daily News, quoting defector Hwang Jang Yop, reported Thursday that North Korea’s founding father, Kim Il Sung, had died of a heart attack in 1994 during a fierce argument with his son and successor, Kim Jong Il.

The report stains the carefully cultivated image of Kim Jong Il as a devoted son.

At the time of the elder Kim’s death, the North said only that he suffered heart failure.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency accused the South of conducting a smear campaign, which it called a “dangerous challenge for all-out showdown with the North.”

“We will, in time, make the South Korean puppets pay dearly for that,” KCNA said. It did not elaborate.