The Hill News

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who just returned from a diplomatic trip to North Korea, said that the peninsula is the most tense he's ever seen it, but stressed Thursday that mediation is needed to defuse tensions.

Appearing on CNN, Richardson's words came as the North issued new threats after South Korean military exercises.

"The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) are getting fully prepared to launch a sacred war of justice of Korean style based on the nuclear deterrent at anytime necessary," North Korea's defense minister Kim Yong Chun said, according to the state-run news agency.

"That's typical of them, very inflammatory rhetoric. But it's not always accompanied by actions as evidenced by last week," he said.

Richardson said he found the officials in military and foreign ministry with whom he met to be "a little more pragmatic" than ones he'd dealt with before, giving him optimism that there could be "a little bit of an opening."

"We need some diplomacy out there," he said. "We need some mediation. We need somebody to get all these sides together."

He stressed, though, that there is "enormous tension" accompanying North Korea's latest rhetoric.

"This is the most tension I have ever seen on the Korean Peninsula for the last 15 years that I have been involved with this issue," Richardson said. "It was reflected in my trip."