Pyongyang's ruling Workers Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said what the leaders of North Korea and Japan agreed at a summit last year was in jeopardy.

Rodong warned in a commentary that there could be an "unavoidable" war between North Korea and Japan unless the tense situation is properly addressed, but stresed it still seeks to improve bilateral relations.

"Japan's policy to stifle the DPRK (North Korea) is now getting more pronounced as the days go by and, consequently, the relations between the DPRK and Japan are inching close to the phase of clash," Rodong said.

Tension between Pyongyang and Tokyo has grown since Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met for a landmark summit a year ago in Pyongyang.

They called for normalization of bilateral ties and the establishment of diplomatic relations but Kim's admission that North Korea had abducted Japanese nationals to train as spies in the 1970s and 80s triggered outrage at home.

Since then Koizumi has frozen food aid and humanitarian assistance to the North and joined the United States in calls for an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development.

"Even the fate of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang declaration is threatened by Japan's reckless hostile policy toward the DPRK," Rodong said.

"The peace policy of the DPRK is invariable and the stand of the DPRK to settle the long-standing pending issues between the DPRK and Japan and improve the bilateral relations remains unchanged."

But the North's official mouthpiece urged Tokyo to "stop cooperating with the US in its efforts to antagonize and stifle the DPRK" for Japan's security.

WAR.WIRE