Stung North Korea Threatens Retaliation Against United States Over Sanctions
In order to thwart a United States invasion, Mr. Ri said, “we need to possess intercontinental attack capabilities to strike the heart of the U. S.”
He also said North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month showed that “the entire U. S. mainland is in our firing range.”
The country’s United Nations mission also issued a lengthy statement denouncing the sanctions, which were
meant to dissuade North Korea from pressing ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programs.
Stung by onerous new sanctions from the United Nations Security Council, nuclear-armed North Korea
on Monday threatened retaliation, saying the United States would pay dearly “thousands of times.”
In its first major response to the sanctions drafted by the United States
and adopted on Saturday, North Korea said it would never relinquish its missile and nuclear arsenals and called the penalties a panicky American-led response to its growing military might.
“Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves unless the hostile policy
and nuclear threat of the U. S. against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated,” Mr. Ri said, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.
The statement called the sanctions, which include prohibitions on North Korean exports of coal, iron
and seafood, “a flagrant infringement upon its sovereignty.”
The response came two days after the Security Council approved the measures in a 15-0 vote
that basically left Mr. Kim bereft of any powerful supporter on the issue, including China, which helped the United States draft the new penalties