In this photo taken Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, new North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, presides over a national memorial service for his late father Kim Jong Il at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – South Korea’s conservative president is a “pro-U.S. fascist maniac,” Japan is “the laughing stock of the world,” and American “aggressor forces [are] the main obstacle to peace in the Korean peninsula.”

North Korea may have a new young leader in the person of Kim Jong-un, but 2012 has begun with belligerent rhetoric from Pyongyang reminiscent of the 17-year Kim Jong-il era.

Arguably the biggest question the new year holds for northeast Asia is the future of North Korea and prospects for regional stability following the death of the dictator, who died of a heart attack on Dec. 17.

Experts and commentators in South Korea and beyond are carefully examining statements and reported actions by the world’s most impenetrable regime, and one that boasts a 1.02 million-strong army and a nuclear weapons capability.

Some have perceived faintly optimistic signs, noting for instance that the traditional New Year’s message published by state media made no reference this year to the country’s nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, a report published by the mouthpiece KCNA news agency on the last day of December said a key meeting of the politburo of the regime’s Workers’ Party of Korea had lauded Kim Jong-il for turning North Korea into “a powerful nuclear weapons state … which no enemy dares provoke.”

This week brought fresh signs of hostility towards the regime’s three customary targets – President Lee Myung-bak’s government in Seoul, Japan and the United States.

On Wednesday, KCNA carried a statement calling Lee a “pro-U.S. fascist maniac” and the “chieftain of evils,” because he had placed South Korean troops on high alert amid the uncertainty following the announcement of Kim’s death.

North Korea’s army would ensure that the South pays a price for that decision, it said.

The implied threat comes at a time when memories of North Korean aggression on the peninsula remain fresh.

Thousands of North Koreans gather at Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang for a mass rally in support for their country's policies and new leader on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service)

In late 2010 North Korea launched a deadly artillery attack on a South Korean island, the first direct shelling of its kind since the Korean War ended in 1953. The sinking of a South Korean navy ship and the death of 46 sailors eight months earlier was found by an international probe to have been perpetrated by the North.

A Dec. 30 statement by the National Defense Commission, the North’s supreme ruling body, vowed that the Kim Jong-un regime would not talk to the Lee government.

Pyongyang abhors Lee for applying a brake on the “sunshine” policy of engagement and aid followed by his two liberal predecessors. It typically calls Lee’s conservative Grand National Party (GNP) the “group of traitors,” and the New Year message flayed it for “intensifying worship of other countries, including the United States.”

As South Korea enters an election year – legislative elections are scheduled in April, presidential elections in December – the North is expected to step up its attacks against the GNP in a bid to boost the chances of its left-leaning, “sunshine” policy-supporting rivals.

“There are several signs that North Korea views this year's general and presidential elections in South Korea as major opportunities to advance its interests,” Seoul’s conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial. “Seoul needs to make Pyongyang realize that it is mistaken.”

Historical foe Tokyo also came under fire this week. One statement condemned the Japanese government for holding a security message in response to news of Kim Jong-il’s death and also criticized it for not allowing Japanese supporters of North Korea to pay condolence visits.

Another North Korean statement condemned speculation by Japanese lawmakers about the possibility Kim’s death could bring down the Stalinist system. The statement mocked Japan’s rapid turnover of prime ministers, calling it politically unstable and “the laughing stock of the world.”

“They want to show that they are tough, united and dangerous, not to be messed with,” Dr. Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert and associate professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University, told CNSNews on Thursday. He described Pyongyang’s statements as the “usual precautions which one would expect at the times of power transition.”

“I think that the statements are designed to show that the Kim Jong-un is firmly in charge as a strong ‘adult’ leader,” added Prof. Robert Fouser of Seoul National University. “They’re for both internal and external consumption.”

‘Refrain from provocations’

In contrast to the post-succession verbal attacks directed at South Korea and Japan, the U.S. has come off relatively lightly so far, although the New Year message did include an exhortation for the nation to “smash every move of reckless military provocation, arms buildup and war exercises against the north.”

“Constant vigilance against the danger of military collaboration of the bellicose forces within the country and without should be maintained, and the U.S. aggressor forces, the main obstacle to peace in the Korean peninsula, should be pulled out from south Korea,” it stated.

The New Year message also described the 20-something Kim Jong-un as a “peerlessly brilliant commander” and urged the entire army to “become human rifles and bombs to defend him unto death.”

“[Soldiers] should be fully ready to deal prompt and merciless blows at the enemy and achieve national reunification, if they dare infringe upon our dignity and sovereignty,” it declared.

On Thursday, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell arrived in Seoul for discussions on North Korea’s political transition, a day after holding similar talks in China, the North’s closest ally.

In Beijing, Campbell said that during his meeting with senior Chinese foreign ministry officials “we urged all parties to cautiously deal with the situation and to refrain from any provocations.”

He said the U.S. and China shared a “strong determination to maintain peace and stability.”

Just days before Kim’s death, U.S. and North Korean officials held rare talks in Beijing on a possible resumption of food aid to the impoverished nation, amid unconfirmed reports that the North was preparing to announce that it would suspend uranium enrichment in return.

It was also reported that the agreement would pave the way to a return to “six-party” denuclearization talks after a three-year hiatus. Following the death and dynastic succession, it is unclear where that reported progress stands.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Wednesday Campbell’s talks in Beijing focused “heavily on close coordination with regard to North Korea at this important moment.”

Hosted by Beijing, the six-party talks brought together North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia in a bid to resolve the lengthy standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.

The talks ran sporadically from late 2003 until late 2008. They stalled amid disagreements over how to verify North Korean compliance with a negotiated pledge to declare all of its nuclear programs and “disable” three nuclear facilities in exchange for economic and diplomatic concessions. No six-way talks have been held since.