By Jack Kim SEOUL, Jan 21 (Reuters) - North Korea is ready to work with new U.S. President Barack Obama to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper published in Tokyo said in a commentary monitored on Wednesday. North Korea on Tuesday accused South Korea of driving the peninsula back to war and at the weekend threatened to wipe out its neighbour, a burst of rhetoric that analysts said might be aimed at grabbing Obama's attention. [ID:nSP303199] "Change is not the monopoly of American politicians," the Choson Sinbo newspaper said, adding it was too early to conclude whether Obama would opt to improve ties with Pyongyang. North Korea pledged to scrap its nuclear arms programme in return for aid and an end to its international ostracism in a deal signed in 2005. But talks to implement the agreement have been stalled over how to verify the North's nuclear claims. "What is certain is that (the North) is ready to respond to any choice that the enemy state makes while it watches the launch of the new administration," the paper, which has close contacts with Pyongyang's leaders, said in a story posted on its website a few hours before Obama officially took office on Tuesday. The North has rarely mentioned Obama in its official media but hinted in a New Year's message that it was willing to work with his administration while South Korean media said the communist state wanted to send an envoy to Obama's inauguration. North Korea has called the South's President Lee Myung-bak "a traitor to the nation," angered by his pledge to end a decade of no-strings-attached aid. Outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush's relations with North Korea got off to a rough start, with Bush taking a tough line toward Pyongyang and the North raising regional tensions by stepping up its nuclear arms programme. The two sides eventually made their way to the bargaining table. But six-party disarmament talks that began under Bush have stalled over the North's refusal to accept an inspection regime that allows for the removal of nuclear samples from its borders. The newspaper repeated the North's argument that discussions on inspections should be left until a later stage when Washington has dropped its "hostile policy". Relations between the two Koreas, which are technically at war, have chilled sharply since Lee took office a year ago. Lee this week named as his new unification minister a conservative scholar and an architect of his policy demanding Pyongyang drop its nuclear ambitions if it wanted economic aid resumed, a move seen as likely to aggravate Pyongyang. (Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun: Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Dean Yates)
Candles burn at the site where lawyer Stanislav Markelov and reporter Anastasia Baburova were shot in Moscow January 20, 2009. Russian mourners on Tuesday laid flowers and lit candles on the ...
