SEOUL: Seoul told North Korea on Friday (Jul 21) that using its nukes would mean the “end” of Kim Jong Un’s regime, after Pyongyang threatened nuclear retaliation over growing US military deployments on the peninsula.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points ever, with the North ramping up weapons testing as Seoul and Washington boost military cooperation.
Pyongyang’s defence minister warned on Thursday that this week’s port visit of a US nuclear-capable submarine to Busan – the first since 1981 – could meet the legal threshold for the North to use its nuclear weapons.
North Korea last year adopted a sweeping nuclear law, setting out an array of scenarios – some of them vague – in which it could use its nukes, including pre-emptive nuclear strikes if threatened.
As Seoul and Washington have “made clear” before, “any nuclear attack on the alliance will face an immediate, overwhelming and decisive response”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Were this to happen, “the North Korean regime will face its end”, it added.
The US submarine’s port visit is a “legitimate defensive response” to Pyongyang’s ongoing nuclear threats, it said.
The visit was agreed upon during South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s trip to Washington in April, when he and US President Joe Biden issued a similarly stern warning to Pyongyang about the terminal consequences of using nuclear weapons.