North Korea again threatens nuke strikes on U.S., South Korea
ASSOCIATED PRESS
People watch a TV news program showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul on Thursday.
KIM JUN-BUM / YONHAP VIA AP
South Korean Marines, wearing blue headbands on their helmets, and U.S. Marines move together during the annual joint military exercise Key Resolve and Foal Eagle by South Korea and the United States in Pohang, South Korea today.
SEOUL » North Korea today issued its latest belligerent threat, warning of an indiscriminate “pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” on Washington and Seoul, this time in reaction to the start of huge U.S.-South Korean military drills.
Such threats have been a staple of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un since he took power after his dictator father’s death in December 2011. But they spike especially when Washington and Seoul stage what they call annual defensive springtime war games. Pyongyang says the drills, which were set to start today and run through the end of April, are invasion rehearsals.
The North’s powerful National Defense Commission threatened strikes against targets in the South, U.S. bases in the Pacific and the U.S. mainland, saying its enemies “are working with bloodshot eyes to infringe upon the dignity, sovereignty and vital rights” of North Korea.
“If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment,” the North’s statement said.
A pre-emptive large-scale military strike that would end the authoritarian rule of the Kim dynasty is highly unlikely. There is also considerable outside debate about whether North Korea is even capable of the kind of “strikes” it threatens. The North makes progress with each new nuclear test — it staged its fourth in January — but many experts say its arsenal may consist only of still-crude nuclear bombs; there’s uncertainty about whether they’ve mastered the miniaturization process needed to mount bombs on warheads and widespread doubt about whether they have a reliable long-range missile that could deliver such a bomb to the U.S. mainland.
But North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric raises unease in Seoul and its U.S. ally, not least because of the huge number of troops and weaponry facing off along the world’s most heavily armed border, which is an hour’s drive from the South Korean capital of Seoul and its 10 million residents.
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The rival Koreas’ usual animosity occasionally erupts in bloody skirmishes — 50 South Koreans were killed in attacks in 2010 that Seoul blames on the North — and there is always a worry about an escalation of violence.
Always ragged relations between North Korea and its rivals Seoul and Washington have worsened following North Korea’s nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket test last month that outsiders say was a test of banned ballistic missile technology.
The United Nations recently slapped the North with harsh sanctions, and South Korea has taken a harder than usual line, with a new North Korean human rights law and the president in Seoul warning of a collapsed government in Pyongyang. South Korea says it will announce new unilateral sanctions Tuesday.
Similar nuclear threats by the North were made in 2013, around the time of the springtime military drills, after the U.N. sanctioned the North over a nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
South Korea’s military says this year’s war games will be the largest ever staged, involving 300,000 South Korean military personnel and 17,000 from the United States. Analysts say one part of North Korea’s traditional anger over the drills is that they force the impoverished country to respond with its own costly war games.
Responding to the North’s threat, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said today that North Korea must refrain from a “rash act that brings destruction upon itself.”
AP writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report.
33 responses to “North Korea again threatens nuke strikes on U.S., South Korea”
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Send Jane Fonda over there.
send Chuck Norris over there.
Send David Ige over there.
May as well send Kermit The Frog along with David Ige. That way it will look like we did something. Like we put on a show or something, because sending David Ige alone is like sending no one.
Send Ernie Martin..heard he speaks some Korean…or was that ate Korean?
Now here’s a country where we should be encouraging regime change/collapse. Never mind intervening in the middle east. There’s no need to get involved in a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims fighting for control of Syria,Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.Let them fight.
Two 20 megaton hydrogen bombs air burst at 10,000 feet over Pyongyang and the Korean Peninsula will be quiet for a while to come……
Got to be sure of 100% annilihation so that no remnants would emerge. Yesterday I used a fogger in my car and the mini roaches still lived.
Brah what you doing, living in your car?
That’s the same kind of idio*tic statements we have come to expect from Noth Korea.
Nike’em first, do the world a favor
Maybe reebok’em would do the same.
Oh, did Kim Jong Un wakie up on the wrong side of the bed again?
The same side.
He just wants attention – like a spoiled child.
The problem is if you say it often enough, you start to believe your own paranoia. That’s the danger here, 10 million or so people live in Seoul, if NK goes more nuts than it already lives, the body count would far exceed Hiroshima. Then the US would retaliate and put several more million people at risk, and you have to remember most of the people in NK are just run of the bill joes and jills trying to make their way through life.
You can tell by how his hair is.
just send an EMP device over Pyongyang and other areas.
These beligirent behaviors of N. Korea are textbook lessons Iran is salivating about. The Iranians were able to fool the world into lifting frozen assets and embargos, having money to spend on modernizing their military with purchase of weanponry from Russia and China. Then they will continue to funnel monies to other countries with extremist frindges causing mini attacts within those countries to destablizing those governments terrorizing the local people. Then the Iranian will follow with stall and delay until they are in no point of no return with their nuclear bomb production. What was the qoute, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me…just watch.
It does look that way.
After years of sanctions, broken promises by North Korea, US withdrawal of forces and weapons, etc. we now have this.
The lifting of sanctions treaty with Iran is starting to look like a replay.
Iran needs to spend half a trillion dollars to rebuild its economy and service its debt. People who watch too much mainstream news don’t ever get told the dire finances that Iran faces and how that plays into how their behavior after the sanctions will change. The last thing the Mullahs want to do is blow all of the unfrozen money on foreign adventures when there is growing social unrest over the economy. Another revolution like the failed Green Revolution is the last thing they want to deal with. In fact, it would be GOOD for the US if the Mullahs did that as it would quicken the deterioration of the economy and spark a revolution to remove the Mullahs and hardliners.
That tempers quite a bit of the conspiracy theorists. Furthermore, Iran needs to cooperate with the rest of the world to sell its primary good. North Korea doesn’t. Having an active nuclear weapons program in defiance of an UN and IAEA agreement would immediately result in being cut off from SWIFT.
**yawn**
I would not be so sure about that. The last time we went through a yawn, the USS Arizona went down into Pearl Harbor infamy.
Pretty much. For Un to use a nuke would result in his regime ending and him likely dead.
No one wants to answer why he’d commit suicide.
This is all talk. As usual.
“If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment,” the North’s statement said.
And who will protect the sovereign nation of Hawaii?
Waltah Rittee
Just how well is that mor-n Kim, guarded? Can’t someone get close enough to sniper him into oblivion?
The chance of UH winning the National Championship in football is much much better than a sniper getting undetected into North Korea. In other words it ain’t going to happen.
Someone get Un a snickers bar!
Da guy is already so fat!
Doesn’t matter. He’s not the same until he’s had his snicker’s bar.
Kim has to know when it comes to nuclear weapons, size really does matter, and our hands are way bigger than his.
ok you pullin da Lil marco trick!