South Korea hit back at Pyongyang on Friday, saying that the arrival on its coast of a United States nuclear-capable submarine and a meeting of the allies’ Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) are “a legitimate defensive response” to North Korean weapons tests and warned it about its threats.
North Korea’s National Defense Minister Kang Sun-nam released a statement Thursday saying the arrival of the USS Kentucky submarine is a “direct nuclear threat” and that the NCG discussed “the plan for using nuclear weapons against [North Korea]” during its inaugural meeting on Wednesday.
The South’s Ministry of National Defense delivered its retort on Friday.
“Yesterday (July 20), North Korea misrepresented and criticized the purpose of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) held by South Korea and the United States and the US strategic nuclear submarine (SSBN) call in South Korea through a statement in the name of the defense ministry,” it replied in a statement.
Neither is “a plot to use nuclear weapons or a nuclear threat against North Korea, as North Korea claims, but a legitimate defensive response by the [SK]-US alliance against North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missile threats.”
The sending of the USS Kentucky, which marked the first arrival of an SSBN on the peninsula since 1981, and the creation of the NCG are a result of the declaration signed in April between the US and South Korea, by which Washington undertakes to reinforce the so-called “extended deterrence” mechanism through which it protects its ally and seeks to discourage Pyongyang from continuing with its increasing development of weapons of mass destruction.
The NCG in particular is a mechanism for coordinating US responses to possible North Korean attacks, including the nuclear option.
Source : La Prensa
