North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would use nuclear weapons “without hesitation” if attacked by South Korea and its ally the United States, state media reported.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades, with South Korea this week staging a military parade where it showcased its bunker-busting “monster” missile and President Yoon Suk Yeol warned Mr Kim that using nukes would mean the end of his regime.
North Korea has also been bombarding the South with balloons carrying bags of trash, and a fresh flurry was seen floating over Seoul this morning. The South Korean military confirmed it had detected the balloon launches overnight.
If an enemy’s forces were “encroaching upon the sovereignty” of the North, it would “use without hesitation all the offensive forces it has possessed, including nuclear weapons,” Mr Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Images in state media showed Mr Kim, clad in his customary leather jacket, speaking at a training event for special operations forces.
There, he slammed Mr Yoon for his “end of regime” comments and “clamouring” about his country’s alliance with the United States.
South Korea, which does not have nuclear weapons of its own, is covered by the US nuclear umbrella, and Washington has stationed tens of thousands of troops in the country since the Korean war ended in 1953 without a peace treaty.
Mr Kim said it was South Korea and the US who were “destroying regional security and peace”, KCNA reported, while branding South Korea’s leader “an abnormal man”.
Military parade
On Tuesday, fighter jets flew over downtown Seoul and tanks rolled through the streets, as South Korea displayed for the first time its largest ballistic missile, the Hyunmoo-5, which is capable of destroying underground bunkers.
An American B-1B heavy bomber also staged a flyover of the ceremony, flanked by F-15K jets.
The US periodically deploys nuclear assets to the Korean peninsula, underscoring its protection of South Korea from the North’s growing threats.
At the event marking South Korea’s Armed Forces Day, Mr Yoon said that if the North “attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will face the resolute and overwhelming response of our military and the US and Republic of Korea alliance”.
“That day will be the end of the North Korean regime,” he added.
North Korea is expected to scrap a landmark inter-Korean agreement signed in 1991 at a parliamentary meeting next week, South Korea’s unification ministry said on Wednesday, as part of Mr Kim’s drive to officially define the South as an enemy state.
Earlier this year, Mr Kim called to remove unification-related clauses from the constitution, while abolishing agencies dedicated to improving ties with the South.
Last month, the North also disclosed images of a uranium enrichment facility for the first time, showing its leader touring the site as he called for more centrifuges to boost the country’s nuclear arsenal.
South Korea’s spy agency later said the unprecedented disclosure was “directed at the US” and that North Korea was believed capable of producing a double-digit number of nuclear weapons.
Last week, a politician told reporters that the National Intelligence Service had warned the North might carry out another nuclear test – its seventh – after the US elections in November.