US threats make war unavoidable, North Korea says

Large military drills being carried out by the United States and South Korea and US threats of pre-emptive strikes against Pyongyang have made the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula “an established fact”, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.

A spokesman for the North’s Foreign Ministry blamed “confrontational warmongering” remarks by US officials for pushing the peninsula to the brink of war.

“The remaining question now is: when will the war break out?” the spokesman said yesterday in a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.

“We do not wish for a war but shall not hide from it,” he said.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen markedly in recent months after North Korea’s latest missile and nuclear tests, conducted in defiance of international pressure and United Nations resolutions.

North Korea said last week it had tested its most advanced interconti- nental ballistic missile yet, which was capable of reaching the United States.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said at the weekend that the possibility of war was “increasing every day”.

US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham urged the Pentagon on Monday to start moving US military dependants, such as spouses and children, out of South Korea, saying conflict was getting close.

On Wednesday, a US B-1B bomber joined the joint US-South Korean military exercises, which are called “Vigilant Ace” and were due to end today.

North Korea has denounced the exercises.

“Recently, as the US is conducting the largest-ever joint aerial drill on the Korean peninsula targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its high-level politicians are showing alarming signs by making bellicose remarks one after another,” the North’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said, using North Korea’s official name.

“These confrontational warmongering remarks cannot be interpreted in any other way but as a warning to us to be prepared for a war on the Korean peninsula,” he said.