North Korea said on Thursday it was ready to counter US military moves with the “most crushing nuclear force,” warning that expanding US military exercises combined with rival South Korea are driving tensions to a “red line extreme.”
The statement from Pyongyang’s foreign ministry came in response to comments by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who said in Seoul on Tuesday that the US would increase its deployment of advanced military assets on the Korean peninsula, including fighter jets. and aircraft carriers, while strengthening joint training and operational planning with South Korea.
South Korea’s security nerves have soared since North Korea tested dozens of missiles in 2022, including nuclear-capable ones designed to strike targets in South Korea and the mainland United States.
In a statement attributed to an unnamed spokesman for its foreign ministry, North Korea said the expansion of allied exercises threatens to transform the Korean peninsula into a “huge war arsenal and a most critical war zone.” The statement said the North was ready to counter any short- or long-term military challenge from allies with “the most overwhelming nuclear force.”
“The military and political situation in the Korean Peninsula and the region has reached an extreme redline due to reckless military confrontation and hostile acts by the United States and its proxies,” the spokesman said.
North Korea has for decades portrayed the United States’ combined military exercises with South Korea as rehearsals for a possible invasion, even as allies have described those exercises as defensive.
South Korea’s defense ministry said on Wednesday the United States flew B-1B bombers and F-22 and F-35 fighter jets in an exercise with South Korean fighters over western South Korean waters. The United States and South Korea also plan to hold a simulation exercise this month with the aim of honing their response if North Korea uses nuclear weapons.
North Korea ramped up its weapons demonstrations in 2022 as allies resumed full-scale training. North Korea’s actions included a series of missile and artillery strikes it described as simulated nuclear strikes against South Korean and US targets.
“North Korea will have the toughest reaction to any US military effort under the principle of ‘nuclear weapon for a nuclear weapon and all-out confrontation for all-out confrontation,'” the North Korean spokesman said, invoking the formal name of the country, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
