Kim Yo Jong says North Korea will view any attempt by the US to intercept its missile launches as a “declaration of war.”
North Korea has said any attempt to intercept and shoot down its test missiles would be considered “a declaration of war”.
The statement on Tuesday by Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, quoted a South Korean media report saying the United States was planning to shoot down Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) if the weapons were to be launched in the direction of North Korea. the Pacific ocean.
The US and its allies have never shot down North Korean ballistic missiles — usually launched at steep angles to evade neighboring countries — but the question has received renewed attention since Pyongyang suggested it fire more missiles over Japan.
Kim Yo Jong said Pyongyang would see any US military action against its strategic weapons tests as a “declaration of war”.
“The Pacific Ocean does not belong to the dominion of the US or Japan,” she said.
The fiery rhetoric from North Korea comes as the US and South Korea restore and scale up their joint military exercises after a record number of missile tests by Pyongyang last year.
The US deployed a B-52 bomber on Monday for a joint exercise with South Korean fighter jets.
The US and South Korean militaries are also preparing to revive their largest exercises later this month.
The field training exercises, known as Warrior Shield FTX, involve amphibious landings and are conducted alongside the Freedom Shield exercise, a computer-simulated command post training focused on strengthening defense and response capabilities.
Kim Yo Jong warned on Tuesday that North Korea is ready to take “overwhelming” measures against the exercises.
“We are monitoring the restless military actions of the United States Armed Forces and the South Korean puppet army and are always on standby to take appropriate, prompt and overwhelming action in our judgment at any time,” she said.
Kim Yo Jong has repeatedly warned of an increased US presence on the Korean peninsula, saying last month that “the frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range depends on” Washington’s forces.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, the North Korean foreign ministry 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 State Department, said that “there is no guarantee that violent physical conflict will not ensue” if military provocations between the US and South Korea continue.
About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, technically leaving the countries at war.
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