North Korea warns of ‘threshold of nuclear conflict’

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – North Korea on Monday warned of what Pyongyang called “threshold of nuclear conflict due to the US provocative military action.”

Reacting to reports that the US is planning to send a strategic nuclear submarine to South Korea, Pyongyang called it “provocative military action" and said it “clearly proves that the situation of the Korean peninsula is coming closer to the threshold of nuclear conflict.”

“This is a very dangerous situation as it will bring the regional military tension to a more critical state and may incite the worst crisis of nuclear conflict in practice,” North Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement to state-run KCNA.

It means that the US strategic nuclear weapons will appear in the Korean Peninsula for the first time since 1981, the statement said, accusing Washington of “most undisguised nuclear blackmail against” Pyongyang.

China last week said that military deterrence and pressure on the Korean Peninsula will only pave the way to a "security trap of tension and antagonism."

Calling it a “grave threat and challenge to the regional and global peace and security,” Pyongyang said: “All the facts show most clearly who commits provocation and who exercises self-restraint, and who threatens and who is threatened on the Korean peninsula.”

“Whether the extreme situation, desired by nobody, is created or not on the Korean peninsula depends on the future action of the US, and if any sudden situation happens in the future, the US will be held totally accountable for it,” Pyongyang warned.

It said the deployment of strategic assets by the US “will never lead to the promotion of security but rather become a disaster of bringing more painful and worrying security crisis they themselves do not want.”

Pyongyang charged the US of “getting more frantic in its military espionage against the sovereignty” of North Korea.

“Recently the US has conducted hostile espionage activities in the Korean peninsula and its vicinity at an unprecedented level by intensively mobilizing various air reconnaissance means deployed in the Asia-Pacific operational theatre,” it said.

The statement said North Korea is “analyzing the true intention of the US ostentatiously perpetrating such reckless military action… while watching every provocative move."

“We are now maintaining our utmost patience and self-control, but everything has its limit. The present is the time when the US is near the critical point to be concerned,” it said.

Calling on the US to “stop at once” all the “provocative moves,” Pyongyang said: “We send a serious warning to all the U.S. dangerous and provocative military actions getting evermore undisguised.”​​​​​​​