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SEOUL: North Korea threatened Sunday to retaliate against the U.S. and South Korea over sanctions imposed on the communist regime, a day after South Korea’s president renewed his offer of conditional aid for the impoverished country.
The U.S. is moving to enforce U.N. as well as its own sanctions against North Korea to punish its second nuclear test in May and a spate of missile tests.
The U.N. sanctions strengthened an arms embargo and authorized ship searches on the high seas to try and rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The council also ordered an asset freeze and travel ban on companies and individuals allegedly involved.
If the U.S. and South Korea “tighten ’sanctions’ and push ‘confrontation’ to an extreme phase, the (North) will react to them with merciless retaliation … and an all-out war of justice,” said a North Korean military statement reported Sunday by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“Should the U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung-bak group threaten the (North) with nukes, it will retaliate against them with nukes,” it said, referring to South Korea’s president by name.
The North’s latest warning came in response to an annual computer-simulated war game Seoul and Washington will kick off Monday.
North Korea routinely condemns joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, calling them preparations for an invasion.
The U.S. and South Korea say the maneuvers are purely defensive.