SEOUL: North Korea said any move to shoot down one of its test missiles would be considered a declaration of war and blamed joint military exercises for escalating tensions between the United States and South Korea, the official said. CNA of Media said on Tuesday.
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, warned in a statement that Pyongyang would see it as a “declaration of war” if the US took military action against the North’s strategic weapons tests.
He also hinted that the North could launch more missiles into the Pacific. The United States and its allies have never shot down North Korea’s ballistic missiles, which are banned by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), but the question has received renewed scrutiny since the North suggested that he would fire more missiles at Japan.
“The Pacific does not belong to the hegemony of the United States or Japan,” Kim said.
Analysts have said that if North Korea follows through on its threat to turn the Pacific into a “firing range,” it would allow the isolated and nuclear-armed state to make technological advances in addition to signaling its military resolve. will give.
In a separate statement, the chief of the Foreign News Section at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry alleged that the United States had conducted joint air exercises with B-52 bombers on Monday and planned U.S.-South Korean field exercises. “stabilized” the
In response, South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, said Pyongyang’s “reckless nuclear and missile development” was to blame for the worsening situation.
The United States deployed B-52 bombers with South Korean fighter jets for joint exercises, in what South Korea’s defense ministry said was a show of force against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
The two countries will hold more than 10 days of large-scale military exercises known as “Freedom Shield” beginning next week.
On Tuesday, U.S. and South Korean warplanes practiced rapid takeoff in a drill designed in response to North Korea’s threats to destroy airfields, JEE News reported.
About 28,500 US 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, leaving the countries technically at war.
