Kim’s North Korea warns of a “nuclear world war”

According to North Korean state media, the United States and its allies are on the verge of a nuclear war of global proportions.

The official newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Rodong Sinmunpublished a nationalist article on Monday to mark the upcoming anniversary of the July 27, 1953, armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War.

The article praised a victory by North Korean state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un, over “the self-proclaimed ‘strongest’ US imperialists and their supporters,” which “prevented a new world war that could have brought global disaster and ruin, and thus consciously secured world peace.”

But “even before the ink of the ceasefire agreement was dry,” the United States and South Korea began conducting regular war exercises facing the North, which continue to this day, the newspaper wrote.

“The exercises have become bolder and more cruel from year to year and are now boldly crossing the red line of a new nuclear world war,” it said.

The “United Nations Command”, which brought disaster to this country 70 years ago, has once again shown its dirty face: troops from persecuting countries and even NATO forces took part in the exercises against the war against North Korea.

The Rodong Sinmun The article comes as Kim is reinforcing his message that nuclear weapons are essential to his country’s survival. Last year, the regime enshrined its nuclear weapons program in the constitution.

In June, Seoul-based news agency Daily NK quoted North Korean sources as saying that Pyongyang had held mandatory lectures to impress upon citizens the program’s central role in deterring a “war of aggression” between the United States and South Korea.

Although the Korean Armistice Agreement suspended open conflict on the peninsula, Pyongyang and Seoul have never signed a peace treaty and are still formally at war.

Relations between North and South Korea are at their lowest level in decades.

Earlier this year, the North amended its constitution to define the South as its “first enemy and unchanging main enemy.” The country then conducted a series of ballistic missile tests over a period of months, violating UN Security Council resolutions.

Both North and South Korea have suspended a 2018 military agreement designed to ease tensions along their border, and the two countries have increasingly traded blows, using tactics reminiscent of the Cold War, from firing drills near the border to exchanging balloons and loudspeaker broadcasts.

Two-thirds of South Koreans support building nuclear weapons, according to recent opinion polls, although the government recently made it clear that it is not currently doing so.

Pyongyang’s more assertive stance has also prompted Seoul to build security cooperation with its ally Washington and, increasingly, with Tokyo. Previously, relations had often been difficult for decades, dating back to the Japanese Empire’s occupation in the early 20th century and a territorial dispute over a small group of islands.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the North Korean embassy in China did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.