A North Korean state agency threatened on Thursday to use nuclear weapons to “sink” Japan and reduce the United States to “ashes and darkness” for supporting a UN Security Council resolution and sanctions over its latest nuclear test.
Pyongyang’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which handles the North’s external ties and propaganda, also called for the breakup of the Security Council, which it called “a tool of evil” made up of “money-bribed” countries that move at the order of the United States.
“The four islands of the (Japan) archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee said in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.
Juche is the North’s ruling ideology that mixes Marxism and an extreme form of go-it-alone nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un.
Regional tensions have risen markedly since the reclusive North conducted its sixth, and by far its most powerful, nuclear test on September 3.
The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on a US-drafted resolution and a new round of sanctions on Monday in response, banning North Korea’s textile exports and capping fuel supplies.
“Let’s reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness. Let’s vent our spite with mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now,” the North Korean statement said.
Japan’s Nikkei stock index and dollar/yen currency pared gains, although traders said that was more because of several Chinese economic indicators that were released on Thursday rather than a reaction to the North’s latest statement.
South Korea’s won also edged down around the same time over domestic financial concerns.
“Dancing to the tune”
The North’s latest threats also singled out Japan for “dancing to the tune” of the United States, saying it should never be pardoned for not offering a sincere apology for its “never-to-be-condoned crimes against our people,” an apparent reference to Japan’s wartime aggression.
It also referred to South Korea as “traitors and dogs” of the United States.
Japan criticized the North’s statement.
“This announcement is extremely provocative and egregious. It is something that markedly heightens regional tension and is absolutely unacceptable,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference on Thursday.
North Korea had already rejected the Security Council resolution imposing sanctions, vowing to press ahead with its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of international pressure.
The latest sanctions also make it illegal for foreign firms to form commercial joint ventures with North Korean entities.
US President Donald Trump has vowed that North Korea will never be allowed to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile, but has also asked China to do more to rein in its isolated neighbor. China in turn favors an international response to the problem.
The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.
The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.
Reuters
One should not be rattled by these missile tests. It is Kim’s temper tantrum. N. Korea is too small and poor to upset political order in Asia, let alone in the world!
It may be time for the US and allies to strike at the heart of the regime: a massive air/cruise missile conventional and in some cases nuclear pre-emptive attack followed up by weaponized drones seeking out ground forces of the KPA and keeping the leadership buttoned up underground until ROK and US forces can reach them. A preemptive mass strike on KPA artillery and ground forces near the DMZ could help neutralize the threat to Seoul. Simultaneously, the allied navies should hunt down and destroy all DPRK naval assets. This is the only real solution to ending the NorK threat and liberating the enslaved NK people.