Sanctions an act of war, N. Korea says

ERIC TALMADGE

PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea’s top diplomat for U.S. affairs said on Thursday that Washington “crossed the red line” and effectively declared war by putting leader Kim Jong Un on its list of sanctioned individuals, and said a vicious showdown could erupt if the U.S. and South Korea hold annual war games as planned next month.

Han Song Ryol, director-general of the U.S. affairs department at the North’s Foreign Ministry, said in an interview that recent U.S. actions have put the situation on the Korean Peninsula on a war footing.

The U.S. and South Korea regularly conduct joint military exercises south of the Demilitarized Zone, and Pyongyang typically responds to them with tough talk and threats of retaliation.

Han said North Korea believes the nature of the manoeuvres has become openly aggressive because they reportedly now include training designed to prepare troops for the invasion of the North’s capital and “decapitation strikes” aimed at killing its top leadership.

Han says designating Kim himself for sanctions was the final straw.

“The Obama administration went so far to have the impudence to challenge the supreme dignity of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) in order to get rid of its unfavourable position during the political and military showdown with the DPRK,” Han said.

“The United States has crossed the red line in our showdown,” he said. “We regard this thrice-cursed crime as a declaration of war.”

Although North Korea had already been heavily sanctioned internationallyforitsnuclearweapons and long-range missile development programs, Washington’s announcement on July 6 was the first time Kim Jong Un has been personally sanctioned.

Less than a week later, Pyongyang cut off its final official means of communications with Washington.

Kim and 10 others were put on the list of sanctioned individuals in connection with alleged human rights abuses, documented by the UN Human Rights Commission, that include a network of political prisons and harsh treatment of any kind of political dissent.