NDC Vice Chairman Invokes “nucelar deterrence” on anniversary of Armistice
NDC Vice Chairman and Minister of the People's Armed Forces delivers the report at the nation meeting on the 57th anniversary of the armistice between DPRK and UN forces that ended the Korean War 27 July 1953 (Photo:KCNA)
NDC Vice Chairman and Minister of the People’s Armed Forces (MPAF), VMAR Kim Yong Chun, said that the DPRK is reserving the right to “mobilize the tremendous military potential, including its nuclear deterrence for self-defense” against the US and ROK. VMAR Kim’s report is a reaction to the ongoing US-ROK Invincible Spirit naval exercises currently underway in the East Sea of Korea, and the report builds on the NDC’s statement that KPA may “start a retaliatory sacred war of their own style. . .any time necessary in order to counter (the US and ROK).”
VMAR Kim’s remarks were part of the central reporting meeting held to commemorate the 27 July 1953 signing of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War (Victorious Fatherland Liberation War) in a cease-fire. The central report meeting took place at the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium 26 July 2010.
North Korea will further bolster its nuclear deterrence “in a new advanced manner to cope with the increasing nuclear threat of the U.S.,” a top North Korean military official said on Monday.
“This is a legitimate sovereign right of the DPRK and a mode of merciless counteraction of its revolutionary armed forces as they have always emerged victorious in the fight against the enemies by displaying the pluck and offensive spirit of Mt. Paektu,” Kim Yong-chun, minister of the People’s Armed Forces, was quoted by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency as saying at a meeting to mark the 57th anniversary of the truce of the Korean War.
DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is the North’s official title.
“Should the U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors finally ignite a new war of aggression in Korea despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, it will mobilize the tremendous military potential, including its nuclear deterrence for self-defense and thus wipe out the aggressors and blow up all their strongholds. By doing so it will clearly show what a real war will look like and completely eradicate the root cause of war,” Kim said.
Kim’s remarks follow a series of North Korean threats since Sunday that have blasted the South Korea-U.S. joint drills in the East Sea.
North Korea will go ahead with a “strong deterrent” based on its self-defensive policy if it determines the United States has abandoned its intent to resolve the March sinking of a South Korean warship through dialogue, a pro-Pyongyang daily said Monday.
The warning by Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper published by a group of pro-North Korean residents in Tokyo, comes as South Korea and the United States are holding massive maritime drills in the East Sea in protest of the sinking blamed on North Korea.
