North Korea will not hesitate to use all available offensive forces, including nuclear weapons, if the state’s sovereignty is threatened, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Friday.
Kim Jong Un said, as quoted by the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, on Friday:
“If the enemy … attempt to use armed forces encroaching upon the sovereignty of the DPRK, full of excessive “confidence” in the ROK-US alliance in disregard of our repeated warnings, the DPRK would use without hesitation all the offensive forces it has possessed, including nuclear weapons.”
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is the official name of North Korea, while the Republic of Korea, or ROK, is the official name of South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, mocked the military parade in Seoul to mark Armed Forces Day in South Korea, calling it “meaningless clowning.” She stressed that Seoul has yet to realise “how shameful this parade was, showing South Korea’s direct dependence on the US.”
Kim Jong Un spoke on Wednesday while touring a special forces military training base in the west of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, KCNA reported.
Kim said South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was a “puppet” who “boasted of the overwhelming opposition of military muscle at the doorstep of a nuclear-armed state, and it was a great irony that raised suspicion of the man’s abnormality.” He also added:
“The DPRK has irreversibly secured the absolute strength as a nuclear power and the system and function for using it while overcoming the long-standing challenges.”
Separately, Kim’s sister ridiculed South Korea’s Hyunmoo-5 missile unveiled at a military parade in Seoul on Tuesday, calling it “useless.”
South Korea unveiled the Hyunmoo-5 missile as Yoon issued a warning to the North that its regime would be finished if it tried to use nuclear weapons. Kim Yo Jong said in a statement reported by KCNA on Thursday:
“If a man has a certain degree of common sense, he could not talk about the “end of regime” of someone with a weapon of worthless large bulk.”
The Hyunmoo-5 missile is the centrepiece of Korea’s “Massive Punishment and Retaliation” plan to respond to the damage caused by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking back at the country’s leadership and military headquarters.
Nicknamed a “monster missile” for its destructive capability, which South Korean media say is comparable to a nuclear weapon, the Hyunmoo-5 can carry a warhead weighing up to 9 tonnes and is capable of striking deep-lying command centres.
At a ceremony marking the 76th anniversary of the founding of South Korea’s armed forces on Tuesday, Yoon said that if North Korea tries to use nuclear weapons, it will face a decisive and overwhelming response from the South’s armed forces and the South Korea-US alliance. He also noted:
“That day will be the end of the North Korean regime.”
Pyongyang recently conducted a successful test of a new Hwasong-11da-4.5 tactical ballistic missile equipped with an ultra-large warhead.
