North Korea accused Seoul and Washington of pushing tensions on the Korean peninsula to the "brink of a nuclear war" akin to the Korean War that erupted between 1950 and 1953, asserting that it would continue to strengthen its defense capabilities.
A research report from the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Institute of American Studies noted that Pyongyang likened the current military tensions in the region to the night before the outbreak of the Korean War, according to the south Korean news agency (Yonhap).
According to the ministry, in a report released by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), that "such bellicose moves of the US have pushed the military tensions on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia already plunged into an extremely unstable situation closer to the brink of a nuclear war." The US resorted to the "disturbing hostilities" of arbitrarily encroaching more persistently on the sovereignty and security of the North this year than ever before and had reached a stage that could no longer be tolerated.
It warned that the war on the Korean peninsula would rapidly expand into a global war and an "unprecedented heat nuclear war in the world", causing the most catastrophic consequences for peace and security in the region and the rest of the world.
Pyongyang will continue to accelerate its efforts to strengthen its self-defensive capabilities to protect its sovereignty unless the US abandons its outdated hostile policy and ongoing military threat against North Korea, per the report.
The escalation between Washington and Seoul, on the one hand, and Pyongyang, on the other, intensified as the North continued with missile tests, while South Korea and the US responded with permanent military exercises to prepare to deter any northern military movement.
Source: Qatar News Agency