Pyongyang to respond to provocations with unpredictable nuclear strike

The Minju Choson government newspaper warns for its part that North Korea will continue building up its military deterrence capability, including nuclear capability.

North Korea launched a carrier rocket with an artificial satellite on board in December last year.

The international community took this as another test-fire of a ballistic missile, so the UN Security Council toughened sanctions against North Korea.

Seoul expects Pyongyang to conduct two more nuclear tests shortly.

Park Geun-hye calls emergency conference due to Pyongyang’s forthcoming nuclear blast

President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is calling an emergency conference involving the country’s political parties due to the forthcoming nuclear explosion in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, according to the South Korean President’s spokesperson.

Park Geun-hye warned Pyongyang earlier that the world community would severely punish North Korea if it conducts the third nuclear test.

Meanwhile, the North Korean authorities have said they will conduct the test in retaliation for the resolution that the UN Security Council adopted in January to toughen sanctions against North Korea.

Voice of Russia, TASS, Interfax

Does North Korea suspect the world of threatening its dream?

Nikita Sorokin

Following the successful launch of a ballistic missile, North Korea is planning to test atomic charges and preparing for more UN sanctions.

Pyongyang’s plans of atomic charge tests followed by new UN sanctions are the consequences of the scandalous launch of the North Korean Ynha-3 rocket on the 12th of December 2012 which successfully delivered a satellite to the orbit. On the 22nd of January the UN Security Council condemned the launch of the rocket which is presumably capable of carrying a warhead in the future. At the same time the UN stiffened penalties against North Korea. In turn, Pyongyang called the US its sworn enemy and announced its intention to withdraw from talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to consolidate its military power. A couple of days ago the North Korean Foreign Ministry accused the US of ‘shameless double standards’ towards the North Korean peaceful space programme and promised resolute retaliation measures in response to ‘bold hostile actions’.

Chief of the Korea and Mongolia Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Vorontsov comments on the situation in his interview with The Voice of Russia.

"North Korea’s argument is that all countries have the right to peaceful space exploration, according to an agreement signed in the early 1960s. North Korea insists that it is its sovereign right to develop a space programme of its own. North Korea’s opponents, first of all the US, believe that Pyongyang is not so much interested in a space programme as in developing the technologies of long-range ballistic missiles under the cover of a space programme.”

We should bear in mind that a rocket bringing a satellite to its orbit completes its mission at that point, Evgeny Kim from the Korean Centre of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences says.

"On the other hand, a missile expected to deliver a warhead to the US territory is to enter space and then return to the dense atmosphere and aim at a certain target on the Earth’s surface. A serious problem of thermal protection arises in this case. North Korea does not know how to solve this problem yet, which means that their rocket does not threaten anyone. In the next few years the chance of a North Korean missile going to the US territory is nil.”

As for Pyongyang’s indistinct threats to retaliate to UN sanctions, experts do not believe that the unilateral beginning of hostilities is meant here. North Korean leaders are pragmatic, they understand that a balance of forces is not in their favour and unleashing a war would be suicidal. All their efforts are aimed at survival and self-protection. This is why they need what they call nuclear deterrents protecting them from potential aggression and attempts at changing their regime by force.

This policy is certain to take North Korea to the next drawn-out spiral of nuclear blackmail of the international community. No sanctions could change North Korea’s attitude. Punishment would not have an effect on the main adherents of Juche ideas. As for North Korean people, their life could not be worse because they have already reached the bottom.