Sink Japan, reduce US: NKorea

America can’t be intimidated: Mattis

A North Korean state agency threatened on Thursday to use nuclear weapons to “sink” Japan and reduce the United States to “ashes and darkness” for supporting a UN Security Council resolution and sanctions over its latest nuclear test.

The Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which handles the North’s external ties and propaganda, also called for the breakup of the Security Council, which it called “a tool of evil” made up of “money-bribed” countries that move at the order of the United States.

“The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee said in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.

Juche is the North’s ruling ideology that mixes Marxism and an extreme form of go-it-alone nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un.

Regional tension has risen markedly since the reclusive North conducted its sixth, and by far its most powerful, nuclear test on Sept 3, following a series of missile tests, including one that flew over Japan.

The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on a US-drafted resolution and a new round of sanctions on Monday in response, banning North Korea’s textile exports that are the second largest only to coal and mineral, and capping fuel supplies.

Threats

The North reacted to the latest action by the Security Council, which had the backing of veto-holding China and Russia, by reiterating threats to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

“Let’s reduce the US mainland into ashes and darkness. Let’s vent our spite with mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now,” the statement said.

Japan’s Nikkei stock index and dollar/ yen currency pared gains, although traders said that was more because of several Chinese economic indicators released on Thursday rather than a reaction to the North’s latest statement.

South Korea’s won also edged down around the same time over domestic financial concerns.

Despite the North’s threats, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he was against having nuclear weapons in his country, either by developing its own arsenal or bringing back US tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn in the early 1990s.

“To respond to North Korea by having our own nuclear weapons will not maintain peace on the Korean peninsula and could lead to a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia,” Moon said in an interview with CNN.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry also said it planned to provide $8 million through the UN World Food Programme and UNICEF to help infants and pregnant women in the North.

The move marks Seoul’s first humanitarian assistance for the North since its fourth nuclear test in January 2016 and is based on a longstanding policy of separating humanitarian aid from politics, the ministry said.

Apology

The North’s latest threats also singled out Japan for “dancing to the tune” of the United States, saying it should never be pardoned for not offering a sincere apology for its “never-to-be-condoned crimes against our people”, an apparent reference to Japan’s wartime aggression.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis inspected a mock-up nuclear warhead, but there was no Kim Jong Un lookalike posing for photographs. He chatted with nuclear missile launch officers in their underground command post, but there was no talk of unleashing nuclear hell on North Korea.

A subtle, unspoken message of Mattis’ visit to this nuclear weapons base Wednesday was that America is a mature nuclear power not intimidated by threats from an upstart North Korean leader who flaunts his emerging nuclear muscle.

Mattis was quietly reminding North Korea that it has no match for a US nuclear arsenal that, while old, is still capable of sudden and swift destruction if Kim were to throw the first nuclear punch.

In his only public comments, Mattis cast his visit as part of an effort to ensure that the US maintains the kind of nuclear firepower that convinces any potential nuclear opponent that attacking would be suicidal.

“You can leave no doubt at all,” he told reporters traveling with him. “Don’t try it. It won’t work. You can’t take us out.”

Mattis was taking such a restrained approach that he barred reporters from his town hall-style exchange with airmen on this base that hosts nuclear-capable B-52 bombers as well as the 91st Missile Wing, which has nearly 150 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles standing ready for launch at a moment’s notice.

Combat

On Thursday, Mattis was getting classified briefings at Strategic Command, just outside of Omaha, Nebraska. Air Force Gen John E. Hyton, the head of Strategic Command, would be in command of nuclear forces in the event President Donald Trump ordered them into combat.

Mattis said his visits to Minot and Strategic Command are intended to inform his “nuclear posture review,” a topto-bottom reassessment of US nuclear weapons policy. He said the review is nearly complete but he would not cite a target date. A major question posed in the review is how big the US nuclear force needs to be to remain a deterrent to nuclear war.

Mattis said Wednesday he has become convinced that the United States must keep all three parts of its nuclear force, rather than eliminate one, as he once suggested. In congressional testimony in January 2015, while he was a private citizen, Mattis said eliminating the ground-based component — intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs — would “reduce the false alarm danger.” He was referring to the argument made by some nuclear policy experts that because ICBMs are postured to be launched on warning of incoming missiles, a false warning might trigger nuclear war.

Mattis has called the submarine-based component “sacrosanct” and has said it is necessary to retain the ability to fire nuclear weapons from planes. Together, those three prongs constitute what the military calls its nuclear triad.

“I’ve questioned the triad,” Mattis told reporters flying with him to Minot Air Force Base, a nuclear base in North Dakota. He said his view has now changed.