In this March 11, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 12, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, third left, looks at South's western border island of Baengnyeong during his visit to the Wolnae Islet Defense Detachment, North Korea. North Korea's young leader urged front-line troops to be on "maximum alert" for a potential war as a state-run newspaper said Pyongyang had carried out a threat to cancel the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) JAPAN OUT UNTIL 14 DAYS AFTER THE DAY OF TRANSMISSION
In this March 11, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 12, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, third left, looks at South's western border island of Baengnyeong during his visit to the Wolnae Islet Defense Detachment, North Korea. North Korea's young leader urged front-line troops to be on "maximum alert" for a potential war as a state-run newspaper said Pyongyang had carried out a threat to cancel the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) JAPAN OUT UNTIL 14 DAYS AFTER THE DAY OF TRANSMISSION
In this March 11, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 12, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rides on a boat, heading for the Wolnae Islet Defense Detachment, North Korea, near the western sea border with South Korea. North Korea's young leader urged front-line troops to be on "maximum alert" for a potential war as a state-run newspaper said Pyongyang had carried out a threat to cancel the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) JAPAN OUT UNTIL 14 DAYS AFTER THE DAY OF TRANSMISSION
In this March 11, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 12, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, confers with military officers at a long-range artillery sub-unit of KPA Unit 641 during his visit to front-line military units near the western sea border in North Korea near the South's western border island of Baengnyeong. Kim urged front-line troops to be on "maximum alert" for a potential war as a state-run newspaper said Pyongyang had carried out a threat to cancel the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) JAPAN OUT UNTIL 14 DAYS AFTER THE DAY OF TRANSMISSION
A North Korean soldier works at a computer terminal under portraits of the the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il inside the Grand People's Study House in Pyongyang on Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
In this undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 12, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, second left, watches sturgeons in a pond at the Ryongjong Fish Farm in South Hwanghae, southwestern North Korea. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) JAPAN OUT UNTIL 14 DAYS AFTER THE DAY OF TRANSMISSION
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea's first public, senior-level mention of South Korea's first female president ended up being a sexist crack. The body that controls Pyongyang's military complained Wednesday about the "venomous swish" of her skirt.
But despite that swipe, and a continuing torrent of rhetoric from Pyongyang threatening nuclear war and other mayhem, President Park Geun-hye is sticking by her campaign vow to reach out to North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, and to send the country much-needed humanitarian aid.
Public frustration with the last five years of North-South relations, which saw North Korean nuclear tests, long-range rocket launches and attacks that left dozens of South Koreans dead, is a big part of the reason Park is trying to build trust with Pyongyang, even as she and South Korea's military promise to respond forcefully to any attack from the North.
Park's predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, infuriated North Korea by linking aid and concessions to what turned out to be nonexistent progress on North Korea's past commitments to abandon its atomic weapons ambitions. In doing so, he reversed past liberal governments' policy of providing huge aid shipments with few strings attached.
Like Lee, Park is a member of South Korea's main conservative party, but she has promised to find a middle ground by re-engaging Pyongyang through aid shipments, reconciliation talks and the resumption of some large-scale economic initiatives as progress occurs on the nuclear issue. Park has also held out the possibility of a summit with Kim Jong Un.
Park's point man on North Korea, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, said this week that regardless of the political situation, South Korea intends to eventually send humanitarian aid shipments for infants and other vulnerable people in North Korea.
Ryoo said South Korea won't accept North Korea's nuclear development or any provocations and called for a dialogue between the countries to improve strained ties.
The Unification Ministry said Wednesday that South Korea hasn't started discussing when to start making shipments, what aid items might be sent and how much it will send.
Park's North Korea policy is of keen interest not only on the Korean Peninsula but also among officials in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. Analysts believe her course will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy in those capitals.
Park's officials have also kept a wary eye on North Korea's recent threats in the wake of U.N. sanctions last week over Pyongyang's third nuclear test. The bellicose rhetoric is seen by outsiders as an attempt to boost loyalty for Kim Jong Un and to win aid from Seoul and Washington.
On Wednesday, an unidentified spokesman for the North's National Defense Commission's armed forces ministry repeated North Korean vows from recent days of a "merciless retaliation" over ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills. The statement also reiterates another North Korean promise to no longer abide by the armistice that ended the Korean War.
Park, the daughter of late South Korean dictator President Park Chung-hee, took office Feb. 25.
"This frenzy kicked up by the South Korean warmongers is in no way irrelevant with the venomous swish of skirt made by the one who again occupies" the presidential Blue House, the North said in its statement. There had been no high-level mention of her since the day before she was elected on Dec. 19. The references didn't mention her by name.
Park lived in the Blue House as a girl and, starting from age 22, served for five years as her father's first lady after a gunman claiming orders from North Korea killed her mother in a botched attack targeting Park Chung-hee.
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