On Monday, North Korea warned a United Nations committee that nuclear war “may break out any moment.”
According to the Associated Press, Kim In Ryong, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the U.N., in speaking to the United Nations General Assembly’s disarmament committee, said that North Korea was now a “full-fledged nuclear power which possesses the delivery means of various ranges, including the atomic bomb, H-bomb and intercontinental ballistic rockets.”
“The entire U.S. mainland is within our firing range, and if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe,” Kim said.
While threats and rhetoric like this are not necessarily surprising from the reclusive nation, they come at a time when tensions are amping up between the United States and North Korea.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, as “little rocket man” or “rocket man” and has also threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea in response to their combative rhetoric.
It was precisely that kind of rhetoric from the United States that led Ambassador Kim to suggest that the nuclear program in North Korea was a “precious strategic asset that cannot be reversed or bartered for anything.”
“Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table under any circumstances,” he said.