NK threatens to attack SK if rival joins new UN sanctions
Source: Agencies |
January 26, 2013, Saturday
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Print Edition
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NORTH Korea has threatened to attack South Korea if Seoul joined a new round of tightened UN sanctions, as Washington unveiled more of its own economic restrictions following Pyongyang's rocket launch last month.
North Korea directed its verbal onslaught at its neighbor yesterday, saying: "'Sanctions' mean a war and a declaration of war against us."
The country this week declared a boycott of all dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear program and vowed to conduct more rocket and nuclear tests after the UN Security Council censured it for a December long-range missile launch.
"If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the UN 'sanctions,' the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will take strong physical counter-measures against it," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said, referring to South Korea.
The North Korean committee also declared yesterday that a landmark pact it signed with South Korea in 1992 on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula was invalid, repeating its long-standing accusation that Seoul was colluding with Washington.
The UN Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch on Tuesday and expanded existing sanctions.
On Thursday, the US slapped economic sanctions on two North Korean bank officials and a Hong Kong trading company that it accused of supporting Pyongyang's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The company, Leader (Hong Kong) International Trading Ltd, was separately blacklisted by the United Nations on Wednesday.
South Korea has said it will look at whether there are any further sanctions that it can implement alongside the US, but said the focus for now is to follow Security Council resolutions.
The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and from importing materials and technology for those programmes. It does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.
On Thursday, North Korea said it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test, directing its ire at the US, a country it called its "sworn enemy."
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the comments were worrying.
"We are very concerned with North Korea's continuing provocative behavior," he said at a Pentagon news conference.
"We are fully prepared ... to deal with any kind of provocation from the North Koreans. But I hope in the end that they determine that it is better to make a choice to become part of the international family."
North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead that can hit the continental US, but its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket over 10,000 kilometers, potentially putting San Francisco in range.
North Korea directed its verbal onslaught at its neighbor yesterday, saying: "'Sanctions' mean a war and a declaration of war against us."
The country this week declared a boycott of all dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear program and vowed to conduct more rocket and nuclear tests after the UN Security Council censured it for a December long-range missile launch.
"If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the UN 'sanctions,' the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will take strong physical counter-measures against it," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said, referring to South Korea.
The North Korean committee also declared yesterday that a landmark pact it signed with South Korea in 1992 on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula was invalid, repeating its long-standing accusation that Seoul was colluding with Washington.
The UN Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch on Tuesday and expanded existing sanctions.
On Thursday, the US slapped economic sanctions on two North Korean bank officials and a Hong Kong trading company that it accused of supporting Pyongyang's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The company, Leader (Hong Kong) International Trading Ltd, was separately blacklisted by the United Nations on Wednesday.
South Korea has said it will look at whether there are any further sanctions that it can implement alongside the US, but said the focus for now is to follow Security Council resolutions.
The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and from importing materials and technology for those programmes. It does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.
On Thursday, North Korea said it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test, directing its ire at the US, a country it called its "sworn enemy."
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the comments were worrying.
"We are very concerned with North Korea's continuing provocative behavior," he said at a Pentagon news conference.
"We are fully prepared ... to deal with any kind of provocation from the North Koreans. But I hope in the end that they determine that it is better to make a choice to become part of the international family."
North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead that can hit the continental US, but its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket over 10,000 kilometers, potentially putting San Francisco in range.
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