North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Friday ordered his troops to put the country’s nuclear arsenal on standby for attack, its state media reported Friday, following the U.N. Security Council’s decision to implement tough sanctions against Pyongyang.

Kim stepped up offensive against the country’s “enemies,” saying that the communist country should ready its nuclear warheads so that they can be fired at any moment.

He said that he would switch the country’s military posture to ready itself for “preemptive attacks” as the situation on the Korean Peninsula has become “precarious.”

“With the U.S. imperialists brandishing their military iron fist and forcing war and calamity upon other countries and nations, the only way to assure our nation’s autonomy and survival is to enhance our nuclear force even more to establish a balance of power,” Kim was quoted as saying by the state-run Korea Central News Agency.

Kim’s comments came amid heightened inter-Korea tensions, after the North conducted a nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a rocket launch on Feb.7. The U.N. recently agreed on what officials describe as the toughest sanctions ever on Pyongyang, while Seoul and Washington are also pushing for unilateral sanctions.

The latest sanctions against North Korea include a comprehensive arms embargo, inspection of all shipments to and from Pyongyang, a ban on mineral exports, and freezing all assets believed to be linked to nuclear or missile programs.

Pyongyang, in an official statement, said Friday that it would respond with “stern countermeasures” to the sanctions, which it said would include “powerful and ruthless physical actions.” It called the sanctions “the most heinous provocation” against itself and said it strongly rejected them.

In addition, Kim, as reported by KCNA, lashed out at South Korean President Park Geun-hye, accusing her of playing a “reckless game of military buildup” which he claimed was like “jumping into a fire with a brushwood.” The harsh remarks appeared to be a response to Park calling Kim’s regime “a tyranny that represses the freedom and human rights” along with her mention of its collapse.

The Seoul government on Friday slammed the North’s stepped-up attacks against President Park and said they could be perceived as “verbal terrorism.”

“We urge the North to abandon its obsolete way of backbiting a state leader with vulgar language and act in a way that is helpful to the development of inter-Korean relations,” said the Unification Ministry.

President Park also reiterated her warning against the North, saying, “North Korea must discard its erroneous delusion that nuclear weapons will guarantee its regime and step into the direction of sincere change as soon as possible.”

“We will place the people and national security as the utmost administrative priority and resolve this problem sternly and by taking the lead,” she said in her speech at the joint inaugural ceremony for commissioned officers.

Kim made the provocative remarks while observing the North’s test-firing Thursday of a new multiple launch rocket system during his “field guidance,” the KCNA said. The exact time and venue of the test was not mentioned but South Korean officials said it appears to have taken place on Thursday in the North’s eastern coastal city Wonsan.

The same day, the North fired six short-range missiles into the Sea, in what military officials suspect is a response to the sanctions.

Despite the North’s nuclear threats, the U.S. raised doubts over North Korea’s ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon and to load it on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Most experts question the North’s nuclear capacity, or even if the country has a reliable ICBM to reach the U.S. But some experts like Lee Choon-geun, an analyst from the South’s state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute, said that the North may be able to place nuclear warheads on shorter-range missiles that can target South Korea and Japan.

With the allies slated to commence joint military drills on Monday, observers have anticipated further provocation by the North such as firing missiles into the East Sea.

North Korea on Thursday fired six short-range projectiles into the Sea, in what military officials suspect is a response to the sanctions.

The 38 North website, operated by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said Thursday that recent satellite imagery indicates possible preparation for a rocket engine test at a North Korea launch site.



By Yoon Min-sik and news reports
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)