North Korea’s latest round of belligerent rhetoric comes from the amusingly named Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a Pyongyang propaganda outfit that threatened genocide against Japan, continental devastation for the United States, and ruination for the U.N. Security Council in its Thursday dispatch.
Few other “peace committees” manage to squeeze so much nuclear annihilation into a single communique.
“The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee declared, in a statement released to North Korea’s KCNA news agency and transcribed by Reuters. “Juche” is the grim state ideology of North Korea.
“Let’s reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness. Let’s vent our spite with mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now,” the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee continued. This was followed by a suggestion that America should be “beaten to death like a rabid dog” for its “heinous sanctions resolution” against peace-loving North Korea.
As for the U.N. Security Council, its latest vote in favor of sanctions against North Korea makes it a “tool of evil” filled with “money-bribed” puppets of the United States in the KAPPC’s opinion. The statement called for the Security Council to be broken up.
Reuters dryly notes that the Japanese stock market showed little sign of reacting to Pyongyang’s latest threats, seeming much more concerned with China’s latest lackluster economic report. The Chinese economy is slipping after a first-quarter peak, which might have some bearing on how Beijing responds to calls from the U.S. and U.N. to exert pressure against North Korea. The most recent demand, made by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday, is for China to rein in North Korea by choking off its oil supply.
The Japanese government did officially respond to North Korea’s belligerence, however, with spokesman Yoshihide Suga denouncing the KAPPC statement as “extremely provocative and egregious.”
“It is something that markedly heightens regional tension and is absolutely unacceptable,” said Suga.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, currently on a visit to India, released a joint statement with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging North Korea to “abandon nuclear and ballistic missile development and refrain from any provocative act.”
The statement also stressed “the importance of holding accountable all parties that have supported North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs,” which has been widely interpreted as a veiled reference to India’s arch-rival Pakistan.
The Japanese military believes North Korea is preparing for another provocative missile test, by moving a launch pad large enough to handle an ICBM into position on Wednesday morning. The test would likely involve one of the new Hwasong-14 missiles, which dictator Kim Jong-un has claimed is able to reach any target in the world.
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