Pyongyang warns of ‘N- disaster’ as 50,000 rally in North Korea
North Korea has warned that US-South Korean military exercises — which it called “the most undisguised nuclear war manoeuvrers” — are driving the Korean Peninsula and north-east Asia towards “nuclear disaster”.
North Korea’s UN Ambassador, Ja Songnam, said in a letter to the UN Security Council on Monday the US was using nuclear-propelled aircraft carries, nuclear submarines, nuclear strategic bombers and stealth fighters in the joint exercises that began on March 1.
“It may go over to an actual war,” he warned of the military drills.
“Consequently, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is again inching to the brink of a nuclear war.”
Mr Ja again urged the Security Council to discuss the US-South Korea exercises and warned if it ignored North Korea’s request as it had in the past it would demonstrate the UN’s most powerful body was only a “political tool” of the United States. The Ambassador said the United States seeks to convince public opinion that the joint exercise is a response to North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but he said the US and South Korea carried out military drills numerous times before Pyongyang possessed its “nuclear deterrent.”
North Korea sent the letter on the manoeuvrers hours after North Korea fired four banned ballistic missiles earlier on Monday, in apparent reaction to the US-South Korean exercises.
Three of them landed in waters Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, South Korean and Japanese officials said. News of Mr Ja’s letter came amid an announcement from the White House that the United State would be further bolstering its defence capabilities in the South in response to the North’s “provocative behaviour”.