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Fidel Castro Warns N. Korea & U.S. Over Possible War

HAVANA (CBSMiami) – The increasingly isolated North Korea received a new warning about trying to start a nuclear war with the United States, this time coming from former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

"If war breaks out there (Korea), the peoples of both parts of the Peninsula will be terribly sacrificed, without benefit to all or either of them," Castro wrote in a letter published in Granma, the Communist Party's newspaper.

The former Cuban dictator called the unfolding situation in North Korea, "one of the most serious dangers of nuclear war since the October Crisis around Cuba in 1962, 50 years ago." Castro was referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis that brought the world closer to nuclear war than almost any other time in history.

Castro said North Korea should remember the "duties to the countries which have been her great friends," of which Cuba is one. Castro also said Cuba would always remain friendly with North Korea.

"It would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70 percent of the population of the planet," Castro wrote.

Castro touted North Korea's "technological and scientific achievements," and called former North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, "a historic figure, notably courageous and revolutionary."

Fidel Castro also had a message for President Barack Obama and the United States.

"If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States," Castro wrote. "The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States."

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