By Anadolu staff
ANKARA (AA) – North Korea on Thursday warned of a "preemptive nuclear strike" following the arrival of a US nuclear submarine at a South Korean port this week.
The US nuclear ballistic missile submarine – the USS Kentucky – arrived at the port city of Busan for the first time since 1981, which South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited on Wednesday.
In an apparent protest, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles hours before Yoon's visit to the submarine.
“We remind you that increasing the visibility of strategic US assets like the nuclear missile submarine could meet conditions for using nuclear weapons laid out in the state nuclear forces policy law we disclosed,” North Korea's Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam said in a statement released by state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“The nuclear use doctrine allows proceeding with necessary actions if it is judged that a nuclear attack on our state has been carried out or is imminent,” Kang was quoted as saying.
Dubbing the submarine tour as the “most undisguised and direct nuclear threat to the DPRK (the official name of North Korea),” the minister further said: “The US military must realize it has brought its strategic assets into far too dangerous waters.”
This, he added, shows that Washington’s scenario for a nuclear attack upon Pyongyang and "its implementation have entered the most critical stage of visualization and systemization and the phase of a military clash on the Korean Peninsula has surfaced as a dangerous reality beyond all sorts of imagination and presumption.”
Pyongyang has launched 14 missiles this year, including the intercontinental ballistic-class Hwasong-15, Hwasong-17, and Hwasong-18 missiles, as well as its first military spy satellite in May, though it crashed into the Korean Sea.
Washington and Seoul agreed in April to establish the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) to discuss nuclear and strategic planning between the allies and strengthen the credibility of the US extended deterrence commitment to defending South Korea with all of its military capabilities, including nuclear weapons.