North Korea vows to launch nuclear strike at US
North Korea has vowed to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, hours ahead of a vote by UN diplomats on whether to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.
Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for “a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.
Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the US.
It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.
Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, and especially so in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming US-South Korean military drills.
At a mass rally in Pyongyang today, tens of thousands of North Koreans protested at the US-South Korean war drills and sanctions.
The UN Security Council is set to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council will vote on the draft sanctions resolution today.
The resolution was drafted by the United States and China, North Korea’s closest ally. The council’s agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signalled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.
The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
It accused the US of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfil previous vows to take “powerful second and third countermeasures” against its enemies.
The statement said North Korea “strongly warns the UN Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the US in 1950.”
North Korea demanded the UN Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led UN Command that’s based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.
In anticipation of the resolution’s adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.
North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on February 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these
