According to state-run media KCNA on Tuesday, North Korea declared that any attempt to shoot down one of its test missiles would constitute a declaration of war and cited escalating tensions as a result of combined military drills between the US and South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, warned in a statement that Pyongyang would see it as a “declaration of war” if the US initiated military action against the North’s strategic weapon tests.
“The Pacific Ocean does not belong to the dominium of the US or Japan,” she added.
She also made a suggestion that the North might launch additional weapons into the Pacific. But, after North Korea suggested it will further launch missiles over Japan, the idea of shooting down ballistic missiles, banned by the United Nations Security Council, launched by North Korea received more attention, though the US and its allies have never shot down the missiles.
According to analysts, if North Korea implements its threat to use the Pacific Ocean as a “firing range,” it would enable the isolated, nuclear-armed nation to advance its technology in addition to demonstrating its determination to use force.
The head of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry’s Foreign News Section claimed in a separate statement that the U.S. was “aggravating” the situation by planning field exercises with South Korea and conducting a joint air exercise with a B-52 bomber on Monday.
In what South Korea’s defense ministry described as a display of force against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, the United States sent the B-52 bomber to a joint exercise with South Korean fighter jets.
The “Freedom Shield” drills, a lengthy military practice involving the two nations, will begin the following week.
According to the Yonhap news agency, U.S. and South Korean warplanes practiced swift takeoffs on Tuesday as part of a drill in reaction to North Korean threats to destroy airfields.
As a result of the 1950–1953 Korean War, which concluded in an armistice rather than a peace treaty and left the two nations technically at war, there are currently about 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea.
