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North Korea Threatens to Attack U.S.
With ‘Lighter and Smaller Nukes’
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: March 5, 2013
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-threatens-to-attack-us-with-lighter-and-smaller-nukes.html?_r=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world ... .html?_r=0</a>
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Tuesday that it would cut off a hot line with the United States military in South Korea, calling the truce that stopped the Korean War in 1953 null and void and threatening to strike the United States with “lighter and smaller nukes.”
North Korea had many times said it was nullifying the Korean War Armistice that stopped, but did not officially end, the three-year war. When it wanted to raise tensions in the past, it had also cut off, and later restored, the military hot line that the American-led United Nations Command maintained with North Korea through the truce village of Panmunjom north of the South Korean capital, Seoul, to help avoid armed conflicts on the divided peninsula.
North Korea’s latest threats came as the United Nations Security Council was about to consider a new sanctions resolution, and five days after the United States and South Korea began their annual joint military exercises. North Korea has always denounced such drills as rehearsals for invasion, and its military started its own drills, with its leader Kim Jong-un visiting military units and its government exhorting the North Koreans to stay on a war footing.
“As we have already declared, we will take second and third countermeasures of greater intensity against the reckless hostilities of the United States and all the other enemies,” the supreme command of the North’s Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency. “They had better heed our warning.”
North Korea has also vowed to take unspecified retaliatory steps if the Security Council imposed more sanctions against the country for its third nuclear test on Feb. 12, and its latest warning amplified on such threats.
“Now that the U.S. imperialists seek to attack the DPRK with nuclear weapons, it will counter them with diversified precision nuclear strike means of Korean style,” the North Korean statement said, using the acronym of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “The army and people of the DPRK have everything including lighter and smaller nukes unlike what they had in the past.”
When it announced its third nuclear test last month, North Korea said it had tested a “miniaturized and lighter” atomic bomb that could theoretically be used atop missiles, although South Korean and American officials said North Korea would need much more time to reach such a goal.
North Korea also said its nuclear arsenal had become “diversified” — a comment some analysts called an indication that North Korea had begun building uranium-fueled bombs in addition to its limited stockpile of plutonium weapons.
Still, its threats to attack the United States with nuclear weapons are still seen by diplomats and North Korean experts largely as propagandistic bluster.
The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war because the conflict stopped without a peace treaty.
The United States, which fought on South Korea’s side during the war, still keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea.
North Korea has long sought to undermine the armistice to create tensions and force the United States to negotiate a peace treaty with it. Washington and Seoul suspect that North Korea would use such peace talks with the United States to sideline South Korea and try to negotiate the withdrawal of American troops from the South.
When the Security Council adopted the last resolution to punish North Korea for its Dec. 12 launching of a long-range rocket, North Korea said there would be no more talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula but it was open to talks on "guaranteeing peace and stability on the peninsula.”
In 1994, calling for a peace treaty to replace the truce, North Korea unilaterally shut down the Korean War Armistice Commission at Panmunjom, which was established to help enforce the truce. The North has since stationed a representative of its military as its contact point at the border village.
On Tuesday, North Korea also said its representative, a North Korean army general, will suspend his duty.
With ‘Lighter and Smaller Nukes’
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: March 5, 2013
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-threatens-to-attack-us-with-lighter-and-smaller-nukes.html?_r=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world ... .html?_r=0</a>
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Tuesday that it would cut off a hot line with the United States military in South Korea, calling the truce that stopped the Korean War in 1953 null and void and threatening to strike the United States with “lighter and smaller nukes.”
North Korea had many times said it was nullifying the Korean War Armistice that stopped, but did not officially end, the three-year war. When it wanted to raise tensions in the past, it had also cut off, and later restored, the military hot line that the American-led United Nations Command maintained with North Korea through the truce village of Panmunjom north of the South Korean capital, Seoul, to help avoid armed conflicts on the divided peninsula.
North Korea’s latest threats came as the United Nations Security Council was about to consider a new sanctions resolution, and five days after the United States and South Korea began their annual joint military exercises. North Korea has always denounced such drills as rehearsals for invasion, and its military started its own drills, with its leader Kim Jong-un visiting military units and its government exhorting the North Koreans to stay on a war footing.
“As we have already declared, we will take second and third countermeasures of greater intensity against the reckless hostilities of the United States and all the other enemies,” the supreme command of the North’s Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency. “They had better heed our warning.”
North Korea has also vowed to take unspecified retaliatory steps if the Security Council imposed more sanctions against the country for its third nuclear test on Feb. 12, and its latest warning amplified on such threats.
“Now that the U.S. imperialists seek to attack the DPRK with nuclear weapons, it will counter them with diversified precision nuclear strike means of Korean style,” the North Korean statement said, using the acronym of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “The army and people of the DPRK have everything including lighter and smaller nukes unlike what they had in the past.”
When it announced its third nuclear test last month, North Korea said it had tested a “miniaturized and lighter” atomic bomb that could theoretically be used atop missiles, although South Korean and American officials said North Korea would need much more time to reach such a goal.
North Korea also said its nuclear arsenal had become “diversified” — a comment some analysts called an indication that North Korea had begun building uranium-fueled bombs in addition to its limited stockpile of plutonium weapons.
Still, its threats to attack the United States with nuclear weapons are still seen by diplomats and North Korean experts largely as propagandistic bluster.
The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war because the conflict stopped without a peace treaty.
The United States, which fought on South Korea’s side during the war, still keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea.
North Korea has long sought to undermine the armistice to create tensions and force the United States to negotiate a peace treaty with it. Washington and Seoul suspect that North Korea would use such peace talks with the United States to sideline South Korea and try to negotiate the withdrawal of American troops from the South.
When the Security Council adopted the last resolution to punish North Korea for its Dec. 12 launching of a long-range rocket, North Korea said there would be no more talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula but it was open to talks on "guaranteeing peace and stability on the peninsula.”
In 1994, calling for a peace treaty to replace the truce, North Korea unilaterally shut down the Korean War Armistice Commission at Panmunjom, which was established to help enforce the truce. The North has since stationed a representative of its military as its contact point at the border village.
On Tuesday, North Korea also said its representative, a North Korean army general, will suspend his duty.
