N. Korea vows harsh retaliation against new UN sanctions

This file photo taken on September 09, 2016 shows people watching a television news report, showing file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, at a railway station in Seoul. (AFP / Jung Yeon-Je)

SEOUL: North Korea vowed Monday to bolster its nuclear arsenal and launch “thousands-fold” revenge against the US in response to tough UN sanctions imposed after its recent intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
The warning came two days after the UN Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions to punish North Korea, including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion.
The US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley called the US-drafted resolution “the single-largest economic sanctions package ever leveled against” North Korea.
In a statement carried by state media, the North Korean government said the sanctions were a “violent infringement of its sovereignty” that was caused by a “heinous US plot to isolate and stifle” North Korea.
It said the UN sanctions will never force the country to negotiate over its nuclear program or to give up its push to strengthen its nuclear capability as long as US hostility and nuclear threats persist. The North said it will take an “action of justice,” but did not elaborate.
“It’s a wild idea to think the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will be shaken and change its position due to this kind of new sanctions formulated by hostile forces,” said the statement, carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
The statement “rhetorically expresses its anger” against the UN sanctions, but the country is not likely to launch a direct provocation against the US, said Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University.
He said the North could still carry out new missile tests or a sixth atomic bomb test in the coming months under its broader weapons development timetable.
North Korea test-launched two ICBMs last month as part of its efforts to possess a long-range missile capable of striking anywhere in the mainland US.
Both missiles were fired at highly lofted angles and analysts say the weapons could reach parts of the US, including Alaska, Los Angeles and Chicago, if fired at a normal, flattened trajectory.