N. Koreans threaten US nuclear strike as world agrees sanctions

The threat of more sanctions had sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.

The vote by the UN’s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea’s closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

The new sanctions aim to make it more difficult for North Korea to finance and obtain material for its weapons programmes.

Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said earlier the North will exercise its right for “a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the US. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.

Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, and especially so in recent days. North Korea is also angry over upcoming US-South Korean military drills.

The US says it will take necessary steps to defend itself and its allies.

The top envoy for North Korea policy is Glyn Davies who is calling on the North not to miscalculate and says the US is working with South Korea to ensure it’s ready for any threats that arise.

The Senate foreign relations panel chairman, Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, says the, “absurd” threat of a nuclear strike on the US would be tantamount to suicide.

After the 15-0 UN vote, US Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters that “taken together, these sanctions will bite and bite hard.”

Responding to the nuclear strike threat, she said, “North Korea will achieve nothing by continued threats and provocation.”

She urged North Korea’s leaders to heed President Barack Obama’s call to follow the path of peace. If it doesn’t, she said, the Security Council is committed in the resolution to take further measures.

In North Korea, Army General Kang Pyo Yong told a crowd of tens of thousands that North Korea is ready to fire nuclear-armed missiles at Washington.

“Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their striking targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads and are placed on a standby status,” Kang said. “When we shell (the missiles), Washington, which is the stronghold of evils, ... will be engulfed in a sea of fire.”

The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

It accused the US of leading the sanctions drive. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows to take “powerful second and third countermeasures” against its enemies.

North Korea demanded the Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led U.N. Command in Seoul and end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war six decades ago.

In anticipation of the UN resolution, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 ceasefire.

North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on February 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology.