The Security Council on Thursday adopted a resolution imposing stronger sanctions against North Korea. It places under surveillance the North Korean diplomats and adds to a blacklist more individuals or companies subject to asset freezes and travel bans. Following the vote, the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon called on the regime to avoid “provocative actions, bellicose rhetoric” and “refrain from any further destabilizing actions.”
He also said that he was convinced that a de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula can only be achieved through dialogue.
Earlier in the day, Pyongyang accused the United States of wanting to start a nuclear war and threatened a “preemptive” nuclear strike on Washington.
“Since the United States is preparing to unleash a nuclear war, our Revolutionary Armed Forces reserve the right to launch a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the stronghold of the attackers,” said a spokesman of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, quoted by the official news agency KCNA.
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the party, has meanwhile threatened with a “thermonuclear war” which will not be confined to the Korean peninsula, in an allusion to the country’s ballistic arsenal, capable to hit the U.S. territory, especially the Pacific Islands.
The North Korean television released images of a large gathering of soldiers and civilians on Thursday in the Kim Il-Sung square, named after the founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1948, to denounce “American aggression.”
To add to the rhetoric of war, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry also warned that a second Korean war was “inevitable” after Washington and Seoul had refused to cancel large joint military exercises scheduled for next week. For Pyongyang, these maneuvers would mean the end of the 1953 armistice between the north and south of the Korean peninsula. South Korea has since late February a new president who said he wants a relationship based on trust with its northern neighbor.
North Korea has successfully completed in December the launch of a space rocket, according to Pyongyang, but in reality it tested a long-range missile, according to the West. A third nuclear test, two months later, has angered the international community.
Since the announcement of the third North Korean nuclear test, after those of 2006 and 2009, the Security Council announced its intention to take “appropriate measures” in a new resolution a text proposed by Washington and Beijing to prevent the North Korean regime to obtain the necessary technology to develop its nuclear and missile programs.
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