North Korea on Thursday threatened unspecified “offensive action” over the expansion of US military exercises with rival South Korea as President Joe Biden's special representative for North Korea flew to Seoul for talks with allies over the North's growing nuclear threat.
The North Korean comments came a day after the United States flew nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the Korean Peninsula for joint aerial exercises with South Korean warplanes in their latest show of force against the North, which portrays the allies' drills as invasion rehearsals. Animosity heightened in recent weeks as the pace of both the US-South Korean military exercises and the North Korean weapons demonstrations increased in a cycle of tit-for-tat.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the United States and South Korea's military exercises and the deployment of advanced US military assets have turned the Korean Peninsula into a “huge powder magazine, which can be detonated any moment.”
“The military provocations by the US-led warmongers have gone beyond the tolerance limit. This reality awaits more explicit stand and answer of (North Korea's) defense capabilities,” KCNA said in a commentary attributed to a scholar.
“(North Korea's) war deterrence will continue to show its responsibility for and confidence in its crucial mission through offensive action,” it said.
KCNA's commentary came as Sung Kim, the US special representative to North Korea, arrived in Seoul for talks with South Korean and Japanese officials to coordinate their response to North Korea's intensifying weapons development and threats of nuclear conflict.
Following meetings with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin and other South Korean officials on Thursday, Kim will take part in a three-way meeting with the South Korean and Japanese nuclear envoys on Friday, according to South Korea's Foreign Ministry.
North Korea in March alone fired nearly 20 missiles over seven different launch events, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that demonstrated potential range to reach the US mainland and several shorter-range weapons designed to deliver nuclear strikes on South Korean targets.
The North described its tests as a response to the US-South Korean drills, as the allies conducted their biggest field exercise in years last month and separately held joint aerial and naval drills involving US long-range bombers and an aircraft carrier strike group.
Tensions are likely to prolong as North Korea is likely to use the allies' continuing drills as a pretext to advance weapons development and intensify military training involving its nuclear-capable missiles.
South Korean officials say North Korea may up the ante by staging more provocative displays of its military might. Those may include the North's first nuclear test since 2017 or test-firing an ICBM on a normal ballistic trajectory toward the Pacific, unlike its previous long-range tests that were conducted on high angles to avoid the territories of neighbours.
North Korea could possibly time some of its military displays to major holidays that fall this month, including the April 15 birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler, Kim Jong Un, and the April 25 anniversary of its army's founding. The North also previously said it aims to finish preparations to launch a military spy satellite into space by April, an event its rivals would almost certainly see as a test of ICBM technology banned by international sanctions.
Lt Gen Park Ha Sik, commander of the South Korean air force operation command, said Wednesday's drills involving B-52 bombers were aimed at displaying the allies' “strong resolve” and “perfect readiness to respond to any provocation by North Korea swiftly and overwhelmingly.”
The United States also sent the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz aircraft carrier for joint naval training with South Korea last week and US-South Korea-Japan anti-submarine drills this week.