As tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula, the authorities in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have warned that Seoul’s policies have pushed the region to the “brink of war.” “In the slightly more than three years since the inauguration of the current south Korean authorities, inter-Korean relations have systematically deteriorated,” a DPRK Foreign Ministry statement received by RIA Novosti stated. “The situation has reached the point of explosion due to the s.Korean authorities’ strategy of ‘unification of the countries by the means of absorption,’” the statement went on. The statement said that this policy meant the “swallowing up of one side by the other.” It also said Seoul harboured “extremely cruel and unrealizable dreams of the collapse of our side” and was attempting to “destroy our nuclear deterrent and…smash our system.” The Foreign Ministry added that it considered Seoul’s enlisting of “neighbouring and even European states” to be, in essence, “a declaration of war against us.” “To achieve an alleviation of tensions on the Korean peninsula and a revitalization of inter-Korean ties, the international community must bring influence to bear on the south Korean authorities so that they abandon their extremely dangerous dream of the unification of the countries by the process of absorption,” the statement said.