N. Korea vows ‘thousand-fold’ revenge against US

SEOUL, South Korea (AP/AFP) – North Korea vowed Monday to bolster its nuclear arsenal and gain revenge of a “thousand-fold” against the United States (US) in response to tough UN sanctions imposed following its recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

The warning came two days after the UN Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions to punish North Korea, including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called the US-drafted resolution “the single largest economic sanctions package ever leveled against” North Korea.

In a statement carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s government said the sanctions were a “violent infringement of its sovereignty” that was caused by a “heinous US plot to isolate and stifle” the country.

“We will make the US pay by a thousand-fold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country,” the statement said.

The North said it would take an unspecified “resolute action of justice” and would never place its nuclear program on the negotiating table or “flinch an inch” from its push to strengthen its nuclear deterrence as long as US hostility against North Korea persists.

North Korea’s missile development poses a “new level of threat,’’ Japan’s defense ministry said Tuesday in an annual report that also reiterated concerns over China’s increasing military posture.

Japan, which lies across the sea from North Korea, has been wary for decades over its missile development as well as Pyongyang’s history of abducting Japanese citizens to train its spies.North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho made similar comments during an annual regional security conference in Manila on Monday.

South Korea’s government said the North would face stronger sanctions if it doesn’t stop its nuclear and missile provocation.