The warning came hours after Pyongyang said it would end a diplomatic communication channel with the US and hinted at harsher punishments for Americans detained in North Korea, responses to the US Treasury Department’s personal blacklist of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for human rights abuses.
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North Korea has warned it will take “physical actions” after South Korea and the United States agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system to cope with the nuclear threat from Pyongyang.
North Korea called USA sanctions as the equivalent to a declaration of war.
An announcement in the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that ties between the NY office and the government of the United States would be “completely severed”, KCNA asserted in the announcement of the DPRK’s change of policy that all dialogue would come under “the wartime law of the DPRK and the issue of detained Americans is no exception …”
Seongju residents are also anxious that the deployment could damage the reputation of their melon crop, which Kim said accounted for 70 percent of the country’s output.
The threat comes several days after USA and South Korean officials revealed plans to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD. The first phase of “stage by stage” actions would be cutting off the NY contact channel, the report said. The other, Korean-American Kim Dong Chul, is serving a 10-year sentence for espionage, state media said.
The recent sanctions imposed by the United States were the first ever that were directly imposed by Washington onto Kim Jong Un.
He also said the location of the THAAD battery will protect important national facilities such as nuclear power plants and strengthen the military capabilities of the South Korea-U.S. alliance.
There is also concern that THAAD could drive China and Russian Federation to take a softer stand on maintaining sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear program and continued missile tests.
Pyongyang then launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile thrice, all ending in failure.
North Korea said the “physical response” will take place the moment the time and location of the THAAD system have been confirmed.
North Korean state media KCNA said: “As the United States will not accept our demand for the immediate withdrawal of the sanctions measure, we will be taking corresponding actions in steps”.
North Korea “will not passively watch how USA undermines peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and will take decisive measures”, he warned.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday that THAAD exceeded the security needs of the Korean peninsula, and suggested there was a “conspiracy behind this move”.
North Korea’s army will “strengthen its potential to ensure protection of peace and security not only on the Korean Peninsula but also in North East Asia”, the General Staff added.
A team of South Korean senior officials and THAAD experts travelled on Wednesday to Seongju, home to 40,000 people, to ease protesters’ fears, Yonhap said.
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Beijing claims that the system can be used against it and is concerned that the powerful X-band radar that comes with THAAD could spy on China’s military assets. Washington said that THAAD is a purely defensive system aimed only at North Korea’s threats.
