North Korea has officially responded to the US-ROK summit last week where President Biden said the regime would be destroyed if they used nuclear weapons. None of these insults and threats coming from Kim Yo-jong should be surprising in response considering North Korea’s past history of insulting US and ROK presidents:
In her comments published on state media, Kim Yo Jong said the U.S.-South Korean agreement reflected the allies’ “most hostile and aggressive will of action” against the North and will push regional peace and security into “more serious danger.”
Kim, who is one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, said the summit further strengthened the North’s conviction to enhance its nuclear arms capabilities. She said it would be especially important for the North to perfect the “second mission of the nuclear war deterrent,” in an apparent reference to the country’s escalatory nuclear doctrine that calls for preemptive nuclear strikes over a broad range of scenarios where it may perceive its leadership as under threat.
She lashed out at Biden over his blunt warning that North Korean nuclear aggression would result in the end of its regime, calling him senile and “too miscalculating and irresponsibly brave.” However, she said the North wouldn’t simply dismiss his words as a “nonsensical remark from the person in his dotage.”
Here is the latest person to call for the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea:
The United States should redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula to make US extended deterrence credible against escalating threats from North Korea, said John Bolton, former White House national security adviser, on Tuesday. This strategy would also enable South Korea to buy time to weigh up the gains and losses of nuclear armament, he added.
“I’ve refused to give up on the possibility of stopping North Korea from getting deliverable nuclear weapons in the first place. That should remain (at) the center of our attention. This is not over yet,” Bolton said at the Asan Plenum 2023 hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
You can read more at the link, but the redeployment of nuclear weapons Bolton says is also a way to hold China accountable for allowing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in the first place.
The G7 can say what it wants, but clearly the Kim regime is never going to willingly give up their nuclear weapons. At some point governments are going to have to recognize that reality:
This undated image, provided by Yonhap New TV, shows North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. (Yonhap)
North Korea’s foreign minister said Friday that the United States and the West have no right to argue about its status as a nuclear weapons power, slamming a recent joint statement by the Group of Seven (G-7) diplomats as interference in internal affairs.
In a statement, Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui took issue with the G-7 Foreign Ministers that condemned the North’s unlawful ballistic missile launches and said Pyongyang “cannot and will never” have the status of a nuclear weapons state under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“G7 has neither authority nor qualification to say this or that about the DPRK’s exercise of its sovereignty and its national status,” she said in the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Well it looks like we know what North Korea’s next provocation is going to be:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) and his daughter, known as Ju-ae, visit the North’s space development agency on April 18, 2023, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency the next day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said Pyongyang has completed building its first military spy satellite and ordered final preparations to launch the satellite as planned, the North’s state media reported Wednesday, in a move that is expected to further heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Kim made the remarks during an on-site inspection to the North’s space development agency a day earlier, as Pyongyang has vowed to complete preparations of the launch of a military spy satellite by the end of this month, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The Kim regime caused another evacuation order yesterday on the Japanese island of Hokkaido due to their latest missile test:
North Korea on Thursday fired what is believed to be a solid-fuel ballistic missile that landed between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, raising fears of possible technical advancement in its weapons program.
Speaking to reporters, a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official said North Korea’s military appears to have fired a new type of intermediate-range ballistic missile ― possibly running on solid fuel.
Solid fuel offers greater mobility for missiles and reduces preparation time before launch, compared with liquid fuel that takes more preparation time requiring activities that could be detected, therefore, giving some time for South Korea and the United States to prepare before launch.
“Given the significance of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung birthday on April 15, North Korea highly likely tested its solid-fuel ballistic missile,” Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank, told The Korea Times. “The test would give the regime the opportunity to send its defiant message to Seoul and its allies and to promote it as an accomplishment ahead of the politically important anniversary.”
A solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is one of the key weapons on the wish list of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who has been expanding and expressing his nuclear ambition following his fruitless summit with then U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019.
The JCS said the missile was fired at a high angle from its capital area and fell into the East Sea after a 1,000-kilometer flight.
North Korea’s latest provocation prompted Japan to issue an evacuation order on Hokkaido. The warning was retracted later when it became obvious that the missile would not fall near the northeastern Japanese island. The country’s defense ministry said the missile could be an ICBM.
The trilateral naval exercise was quite successful in getting the attention of the Kim regime. Lets hope many more of them are scheduled in the future:
North Korea on Thursday denounced South Korea and the United States’ latest joint military drills as an “unprecedented” war rehearsal, vowing to take “offensive” military steps against such actions.
In a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency, Choe Ju-hyon, a critic of international security affairs, said Seoul and Washington’s “frantic” military drills have turned the Korean Peninsula into a “powder keg” that can explode at any moment.
“Our war deterrence will continue to show responsibility and confidence in its critical mission with offensive actions,” Choe said.
