North Korea has strongly protested the United Nation's plan to open an office in Seoul to monitor the North's human rights conditions.
 
The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement released Friday that if the human rights office is set up, it will consider it as an open declaration of war. 
 
In the statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency, the North threatened to "mercilessly punish" South Korea by mobilizing all means possible if the office opened in Seoul. 
 
The North claimed the UN office was an "unpardonable, colossal provocation challenging the integrity of its regime."
 
It accused South Korea and the U.S. for driving inter-Korean relations to an extreme. 
 
The committee also blasted Seoul as "utterly brazen faced" to show interest in inter-Korean dialogue and holding events to mark the June 2000 South-North summit while seeking to open a UN office.
 
Pyongyang threatened that as soon as the doorplate of that office is hung, the South Korean government will become the "first striking target of gun barrels from Baekdu Mountain and witness a most miserable demise."