North Korea vows nuclear response to U.S.-Seoul drills

[Zodiac]

My link

SEOUL — North Korea warned Saturday that it will respond with "powerful nuclear deterrence" to joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend, saying the drills amount to a provocation that cannot be ignored.

North Korea routinely threatens war when South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an attack on the North. The latest threat comes amid increased tensions on the peninsula over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul and Washington blame on Pyongyang.

The allies' defense chiefs announced earlier in the week they would stage the drills to send a clear message to North Korea to stop its "aggressive" behavior. Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the March sinking of the Cheonan, considered the worst military attack on the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea vehemently denies any involvement and says any punishment would trigger war.

On Saturday, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission — headed by leader Kim Jong Il — backed that threat up by promising a "retaliatory sacred war" against South Korea and the U.S. for what it called a second "unpardonable" provocation after wrongly accusing the North in the Cheonan incident.

"The army and people of the (North) will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises," the commission said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

A day earlier in Hanoi, a North Korean spokesman for the delegation attending a regional security conference warned the drills would draw a "physical response" from Pyongyang.

Story continues below

South Korea's Defense Ministry said no unusual North Korean military movements were detected.

Games set for Sunday

The nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier is already docked in the southern port of Busan for the military games set to begin Sunday. In addition, the U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea to deter against aggression, a presence that Pyongyang cites as a key reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons.

"The more desperately the U.S. imperialists brandish their nukes and the more zealously their lackeys follow them, the more rapidly the (North's) nuclear deterrence will be bolstered up along the orbit of self-defense and the more remote the prospect for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will be become," the commission statement said.

The U.S.-South Korean military drills are to set to run through Wednesday, with about 8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops on some 20 ships and submarines carrying out exercises in the East Sea.

The drills also involve some 200 aircraft, headlined by four U.S. Air Force's F-22 "Raptor" stealth fighters.

New sanctions

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Wednesday, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, that the U.S. would slap new sanctions on the North to stifle its nuclear ambitions and punish it for the Cheonan sinking.

On Friday, the European Union said it, too, would consider new sanctions on North Korea.

Story: Clinton urges Asia to enforce sanctions on N. Korea

The North's Foreign Ministry also said Saturday that Pyongyang will further strengthen its nuclear deterrent and again mentioned "powerful physical measures" in response to the U.S. military provocations and sanctions.

"We are ready for both dialogue and war," KCNA quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

In Hanoi, Clinton and a North Korean official traded barbs Friday over the sinking, the military drills and the imposition of the new U.S. sanctions. North Korean spokesman Ri Tong Il said the tensions showed the need to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the armistice signed at the end of the Korean War.

Clinton said the U.S. is willing to meet and negotiate with the North, but this type of threat only heightens tensions. She added progress in the short term seems unlikely.

"It is distressing when North Korea continues its threats and causes so much anxiety among its neighbors and the larger region," she told reporters. "But we will demonstrate once again with our military exercises ... that the United States stands in firm support of the defense of South Korea and we will continue to do so."

**** North Korea is threatning to nuke South Korea 3 days before SC2... this isn't going to end well :P.

Edited July 24, 2010 by Zodiac

[Rodak]

Edited July 24, 2010 by Rodak

[Statick]

Someone needs to hip North Korea to the fact that they're not the only one with a nuke.

[Ethanga62890]

One nuke will make South Korea an Island. Kim Jong Il must be smoking some **** fine opium if he's serious.

[The Gritz Blitz]

One nuke will make South Korea an Island. Kim Jong Il must be smoking some **** fine opium if he's serious.

One nuke would destroy North and South Korea. Something we wouldn't wanna do.

[King ED]

One nuke would destroy North and South Korea. Something we wouldn't wanna do.

A nuke is powerful, but not that powerful. Directly it wouldn't, but the back and forth trading of nuclear fire would do it for sure.

[=abrahamburger=]

I did it all for the nukey. The nukey. The nukey.

[Mojo Risin]

That would be the last thing they want to do. The response would have them wiped off of the face of the Earth in a matter of hours.

[King ED]

That would be the last thing they want to do. The response would have them wiped off of the face of the Earth in a matter of hours.

Basically, it's MAD, except NK doesn't have remotely near the nuclear capabilities that we do. They couldn't even wipe out South Korea, let alone send an array of ICBMs at us. So it's just "AD", assured destruction.

[Statick]

That would be the last thing they want to do. The response would have them wiped off of the face of the Earth in a matter of hours.

Kim Jong Il knows this already. His people, most of which are kept in ignorance, do not.

To quote an old Jive term, he's "selling wolf tickets".

[Statick]

it's theatre.

Yep.

[A-TowN.-]

He says this all the time. He won't. And even IF he did he'd have to know NK would be done for.

[NZFalcon]

ROFL @ the faces in the back ground

[Statick]

ROFL @ the faces in the back ground

I didn't want to say anything at first, but since you pointed it out... ...yeah, those are some fugged up little dudes.

It looks like Korean Munchkin Land back there. Look at those humongous hats.

[The Monarch]

Lil Kim: RAAAAAAAAARGHGGH!

Rest of World: lol

[Bullitt]

Kim Jong-Il's hair is a provocation that can't be ignored.