SEOUL.- North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un threatened to use nuclear weapons and permanently destroy South Korea if provoked, state media reported Friday, after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned that Kim’s regime would collapse if was trying to use nuclear weapons.
These types of exchanges between the rulers of North and South Korea are nothing new, but the latest statements come at a tense time after North Korea recently revealed the existence of a nuclear facility and its continued test launches. of missiles. According to experts, the North Korean parliament is scheduled next week to issue a constitutional declaration of a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula to formally reject reconciliation with South Korea and codify new national borders.
During a visit to the special operations forces unit on Wednesday, Kim said that “all attack potential in power, including nuclear weapons, will be used ruthlessly” if South Korea attempts to use its military to invade. the sovereignty of North Korea, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KNCA).
“If such a circumstance occurs, the lasting existence of Seoul and the ROC will be impossible,” Kim said, using South Korea’s official name.
Kim’s statements came in response to Yoon’s speech during his country’s Armed Forces Day celebration last Tuesday. Introducing the Hyunmoo-5 ballistic missile, South Korea’s most powerful, and other conventional weapons that could target North Korea, Yoon said the day North Korea tries to use nuclear weapons would be the end of Kim’s government. , because it would face “the determined and overwhelming response” of the alliance of South Korea and the United States.
Kim responded that Yoon’s speech fully revealed his “persecution mania” and demonstrated that “this is an exhibition of the security uncertainty suffered by the puppets and their impatient psychic state.”
Relations between the two Koreas are at their worst in years and Pyongyang recently announced the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border.