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President Kim Jong-un with military personnel in the Mu Islet located at the southernmost part of North Korea’s border with the south; (above) President Park Geun-hye salutes during the joint commission ceremony of 5,780 new officers at the Gyeryong military headquarters, south of Seoul. (AP) |
Seoul, March 8: Angrily responding to the UN Security Council’s unanimous decision to impose tightened sanctions, North Korea said today that it was nullifying all non-aggression agreements with South Korea, with one of its top generals claiming that his country had nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles ready to blast off.
Matching the harsh warning with a toughened stance, South Korea said today that if Pyongyang attacks the South with a nuclear weapon, the regime of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, “will be erased from the earth”.
Such language marked the most hostile exchange between the two Koreas, still technically at war, since they engaged in an artillery skirmish three years ago.
The verbal warfare represented a clash of nerves between the young North Korean leader, who is building his credentials as head of his militaristic country, and Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female President, who considers the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher her role model and has stressed security as her top priority.
While weapons experts say North Korea does not have the technical capability to use nuclear-tipped missiles, that did not stop it from warning of their deployment.
“With their targets set, our intercontinental ballistic missiles and other missiles are on a standby, loaded with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads,” said Kang Pyo-yong, a three-star general and vice defence minister of North Korea.
“If we push the button, they will blast off and their barrage will turn Washington, the stronghold of American imperialists and the nest of evil, and its followers, into a sea of fire.” His comment, made during a speech before a mass rally in Pyongyang yesterday, was carried by the North’s main party newspaper Rodong Sinmun today.
In the last few days, the state-run North Korean media has carried a slew of official remarks threatening to launch “pre-emptive nuclear strikes” at Washington and Seoul with “lighter and smaller nukes”, hinting that it has built nuclear warheads small enough to mount on long-range missiles. But US and South Korean officials strongly doubt North Korea has mastered that technology, despite its successful launching of a long-range rocket in December and its third nuclear test last month.
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