SEOUL: North Korea has threatened to go beyond carrying out its promised third nuclear test in response to what it believes are “hostile” sanctions imposed after a December rocket launch, the North’s KCNA state news agency said. Pyongyang did not spell out the actions it would take.
“The DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or North Korea) has drawn a final conclusion that it will have to take a measure stronger than a nuclear test to cope with the hostile forces nuclear war moves that have become ever more undisguised,” the media agency said.
The North frequently employs fiery rhetoric aimed at South Korea and the US and in 2010 was blamed for sinking a South Korean naval vessel. It also shelled a South Korean island in the same year, killing civilians.
The United States and South Korea are staging military drills that North Korea says are a rehearsal for an invasion, something both Washington and Seoul deny.
North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket in December in violation of UN resolutions that banned it from developing missile or nuclear technology after nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. Pyongyang, however, says that it has the right to launch rockets for peaceful purposes.
DND
