The U.N. Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions against North Korea on Wednesday.
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According to the North’s state-run KCNA news agency, Kim’s order came during testing of a multiple rocket launcher feared to be capable of striking military targets in South Korea.
The North warned that it will take “stern” actions against the move by the United States and its followers to crush its sovereign rights.
The resolution calls for mandatory inspections of all cargo going into and out of North Korea and a ban on exports of mineral resources, a major source of hard currency for the cash-strapped country.
Johns Hopkins University’s 38 North project, which monitors North Korea, said recent commercial satellite imagery showed new activity in the isolated country including a convoy of trucks at its satellite launch station that could be preparations for a rocket-engine test.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered his country to be ready to use its nuclear weapons at any time and to turn its military posture to “pre-emptive attack” mode in the face of growing threats from its enemies, official media said on Friday. It did not mention the date of the drills but said the new weapons had South Korea within range. In response, the North fired six short-range projectiles into the sea. South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left in foreground, cheers new military officers during a military commissioning ceremony at Gyeryongdae, South Korea’s main military compound, in Gyeryong, South Korea, Friday, . But citizens in its capital, Pyongyang, interviewed by The Associated Press said Thursday they believe their country can fight off any sanctions. The Treasury Department’s efforts support an asset freeze against North Korea’s Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry, the Academy of National Defense Science and the National Aerospace Development Administration. Opponents say the system could help US radar spot missiles in other countries.
The spokesman said that the South Korean military is in the process of analyzing the projectiles while monitoring the situation in the North. She recently warned of North Korea’s future collapse, and South Korea’s National Assembly passed a human rights bill that criticizes the North Korean government’s abysmal treatment of its citizens.
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Japan’s United Nations ambassador, Motohide Yoshikawa, said, “That’s their way of reacting to what we have decided”. Last month, it put a satellite into orbit with a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others saw as a cover for a test of banned ballistic missile technology. The sanctions vote occurred almost one month after North Korea launched a nuclear missile on February 7, having successfully tested a hydrogen bomb a month earlier, its fourth such test.
