North Korea issues nuclear warning
North Korea has warned that its military has been cleared to attack the US using “smaller, lighter and diversified” nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile the US said it will strengthen regional protection by deploying a missile defence system to Guam.
Despite the intense rhetoric, analysts do not expect a nuclear attack by North Korea, which knows the move could trigger a destructive, suicidal war.
Experts believe Pyongyang does not yet have the ability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles, but its other nuclear capabilities are not fully known.
The strident warning from Pyongyang is the latest in a series of escalating threats from North Korea.
It has criticised joint US and South Korean military exercises taking place in South Korea and expressed anger over tightened sanctions for its February nuclear test.
For a second day today, North Korean border authorities denied entry to South Koreans who jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong.
A North Korean government-run committee threatened to pull out North Korean workers from Kaesong as well.
On Tuesday, Pyongyang announced it would restart a plutonium reactor it had shut down in 2007.
A US research institute said yesterday that satellite imagery shows construction needed for the restart has already begun.
North Korea’s military statement said its troops had been authorised to counter US “aggression” with “powerful practical military counteractions,” including nuclear weapons.
“We formally inform the White House and Pentagon that the ever-escalating US hostile policy toward the DPRK and its reckless nuclear threat will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means,” a spokesman from the general bureau of the Korean People’s Army said.
“The US had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation.”
The statement was carried by state media, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The Pentagon announced that it will deploy a missile defence system to the US Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington is doing all it can to defuse the situation.
“Some of the actions they’ve taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat to the interests, certainly of our allies, starting with South Korea and Japan, and also the threats that the North Koreans have levelled directly at the United States regarding our base in Guam, threatened Hawaii, threatened the West Coast of the United States,” he said.
South Korea’s defence ministry said its military is ready to deal with any provocation by North Korea.
“I can say we have no problem in crisis management,” deputy ministry spokesman Wee Yong-sub said.
Meanwhile North Korea threatened to close the Kaesong industrial complex, which houses factories powered by South Korean money and know-how and North Korean labour.
It is a symbol of inter-Korean co-operation that has endured years of declining relations.
Trucks carrying cargo and South Korean workers were turned back yesterday and again this morning, at the border city of Paju.
North Korea was allowing South Korean managers at Kaesong to return home. About 220 South Koreans were to cross the heavily fortified border into the South throughout today, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
