TEMPO.CO, Seoul - A North Korean state agency threatened on Thursday, Sept. 14, to use nuclear weapons to sink Japan and reduce the United States to ashes and darkness for supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution and sanctions over its latest nuclear test.
Pyongyang's Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which handles the North's external ties and propaganda, also called for the breakup of the Security Council, which it called "a tool of evil" made up of "money-bribed" countries that move at the order of the United States.
"The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us," the committee said in a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.
Juche is the North's ruling ideology that mixes Marxism and an extreme form of go-it-alone nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un.
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Regional tension has risen markedly since the reclusive North conducted its sixth, and by far its most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3.
The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on a U.S.-drafted resolution and a new round of sanctions on Monday in response, banning North Korea's textile exports that are the second largest only to coal and mineral and capping fuel supplies.
The North reacted to the latest action by the Security Council, which had the backing of veto-holding China and Russia, by reiterating threats to destroy the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
"Let's reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness. Let's vent our spite with the mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now," the statement said.
Japan's Nikkei stock index and dollar/yen currency pared gains, although traders said that was more because of several Chinese economic indicators released on Thursday rather than a reaction to the North's latest statement.
South Korea's won also edged down around the same time over domestic financial concerns.
Despite the tension, South Korea's Unification Ministry said it planned to provide $8 million through the U.N. World Food Programme and UNICEF to help infants and pregnant women in the North.
The move marks Seoul's first humanitarian assistance for the North Korea after its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, and is based on a longstanding policy of separating humanitarian aid from politics, the ministry said.
REUTERS
