By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea made its first mention ofSouth Korea's new president on Tuesday since his Decemberelection, using a torrent of insults and warning his call toget tough with Pyongyang would have "catastrophic"consequences.
In the past week the North has test-fired missiles,expelled South Korean officials from a joint factory park inthe North and threatened to reduce South Korea to ashes in ashow of anger at Lee and the South's ally, the United States.
North Korea called conservative Lee Myung-bak, who tookoffice in February, a "political charlatan", an "absent-mindedtraitor" and a "U.S. sycophant" in a commentary in thecommunist party Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried by its KCNAnews agency.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a Lee aide assaying: "North Korea's mentioning of the name of South Koreanhead of state is not an appropriate attitude."
Lee's government has told its impoverished neighbour thatif it wants more aid, it must improve human rights, abide by aninternational nuclear deal and start returning the more than1,000 Southerners kidnapped or held since the 1950-53 KoreanWar.
The stand has infuriated the testy North, used to billionsof dollars of aid over the past 10 years from Lee'sleft-of-centre predecessors whose "sunshine policy" soughtlittle in return.
"The Lee Myung-bak regime will be held totally responsiblefor ushering in a catastrophic incident by freezing North-Southrelations and destroying peace and stability on the Koreanpeninsula through its pro-U.S., anti-North Koreaconfrontational attempts," the commentary said.
Unusually, the entire commentary was read on a specialstate television broadcast. This was the first official mentionof Lee's victory by the state-controlled media.
"The new thing about this is that he is being vilified byname. (But) it is a much more superficial change than peoplemight think. The bulk of domestic propaganda has always beenanti-South Korean," said Brian Myers, an expert on the North'spropaganda at the South Korea's Dongseo University.
DEFLECT BLAME
With its taunts, analysts said the North also might betrying to deflect blame from itself for a delay in implementinga deal with regional powers to scrap a nuclear arms programmein exchange for aid and an end to its international ostracism.
The North failed to meet an end-of-2007 deadline in asix-country deal to release a complete accounting of itsnuclear material and weaponry, as well as answer U.S.suspicions of having a secret programme to enrich uranium forweapons.
The international community hopes the deal will eventuallylead to a complete nuclear disarming of the North.
"The North has shifted to blaming the South for what it hasnot been able to work out with the U.S.," said Choi Jin-wook,of the Korea Institute for National Unification.
Lee's government has said it would work closely with theUnited States and Japan, and its stance on North Korea putsSouth Korea closer to its traditional allies in trying to exertpressure on the North to force change.
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. envoy to the North Koreannuclear talks, said in Seoul that the comments "are obviouslycompletely inappropriate" and called on the North to makeprogress on the nuclear deal.
Lee has proposed an aid package for North Korea that wouldlift per-capita income from a few hundred dollars a year to$3,000 (1,500 pounds), provided it abides by the six-waynuclear deal.
The North called Lee's plan "piffle" and said it "will beable to live as well as it wishes without any help from theSouth as it did in the past".
(Additional reporting by Yoo Choonsik and Lee Jiyeon;Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)