The influential sister of North Korea’s leader yesterday said that her country is ready to take “quick, overwhelming action” against the US and South Korea, a day after the US flew a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber in a demonstration of strength against the North.
Monday’s US-South Korean training involving the B-52 bomber over the Korean Peninsula was the latest in a series of drills between the allies in recent months. Their militaries are also preparing to revive their largest field exercises later this month.
Kim Yo-jong did not elaborate on any planned actions in her statement, but North Korea has often test-launched missiles in response to US-South Korean military drills because it views them as an invasion rehearsal.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We keep our eye on the restless military moves by the US forces and the South Korean puppet military, and are always on standby to take appropriate, quick and overwhelming action at any time according to our judgement,” Kim said in the statement carried by state media.
“The demonstrative military moves and all sorts of rhetoric by the US and South Korea, which go so extremely frantic as not to be overlooked, undoubtedly provide [North Korea] with conditions for being forced to do something to cope with them,” she said.
After Monday’s training, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said the B-52’s deployment demonstrated the allies’ decisive capacities to deter North Korean aggressions.
The US deployed a long-range US B-1B bomber or multiple B-1Bs to the peninsula a few times earlier this year. Last month, the US and South Korea also held a simulation in Washington aimed at sharpening their response to North Korean nuclear threats.
On Friday last week, the South Korean and US militaries announced that they would conduct a computer-simulated command post training from Monday next week to March 23 and restore their largest springtime field exercises that were last held in 2018.
The allies had canceled or scaled back some of their regular drills since 2018 to support now-dormant diplomacy with North Korea and guard against the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, they have been restoring their exercises after North Korea last year conducted a record number of missile tests and openly threatened to use its nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with its rivals.
In a separate statement yesterday, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the flyover of the US B-52 bomber a reckless provocation that pushes the situation on the peninsula “deeper into the bottomless quagmire.”
The statement, attributed to the unnamed head of the ministry’s foreign news office, said that “there is no guarantee that there will be no violent physical conflict” if US-South Korean military provocations continue.
North Korea often unleashes fiery rhetoric in times of heightened animosities with the US and South Korea. Possible steps North Korea could take include a nuclear test or the launch of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) targeting the mainland US, observers say.
In her statement yesterday, Kim said North Korea would consider a possible US attempt to intercept a North Korean ICBM a declaration of war.
She cited a South Korean media report saying the US military plans to shoot down a North Korean ICBM if it is test-launched toward the Pacific.
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