South Korea hit back at Pyongyang on Friday (July 21) assuring swift “end” of Kim Jong Un’s regime, a day after the latter threatened to use nuclear weapons in response to US nuclear submarine deployment.
As Seoul and Washington have “made clear” before, “any nuclear attack on the alliance will face an immediate, overwhelming and decisive response”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement Friday.
Were this to happen, “the North Korean regime will face its end”, it added, AFP news reported.
Seoul said that the visit of the US Ohio-class submarine——the first since 1981 — to the Busan port is a “legitimate defensive response” to North Korea’s ongoing nuclear threats.
The nuclear law is ambiguous, and claims Pyongyang can use its nukes if “an attack by nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction… is judged to draw near”, it added.
The strong rebuttal came in response to North Korea’s defence minister warning on Thursday that this week’s port visit of the US nuclear-capable submarine could meet the legal threshold for the North to use its nuclear weapons.
Direct nuclear threat to North Korea
On Thursday, the North Korean defence minister warned that the presence of the submarine was an “undisguised and direct nuclear threat to the DPRK”, and meant that “strategic nuclear weapons have been deployed on the Korean peninsula for the first time after 40 odd years”.
“The armed forces of the DPRK will responsibly carry out their important mission for defending the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests and preventing a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula,” the minister said in a statement, according to state media KCNA.
Last year, North Korea adopted sweeping nuclear law, setting out an array of scenarios in which it could use its nukes, including pre-emptive nuclear strikes if threatened.
South-North ties on downward spiral
The relations between North and the South have nosedived as Kim Jong Un has been calling for increasing weapons development, including tactical nuclear weapons, while Seoul has been growing even more closer to Washington.
The port visit of US nuclear-capable submarine was in response to North Korea conducting a string of banned weapons test, including nuclear ballistic missiles.
(With inputs from agencies)
