An official North Korean website warned on Monday that Pyongyang will “wipe out” the United States if Washington starts a war on the peninsula, the latest tit- for-tat sabre-rattling that has sent tensions soaring in the region.
The US supercarrier Carl Vinson will arrive in waters off the Korean peninsula “in a matter of days”, Vice-President Mike Pence said on Saturday, amid reports the North could be preparing a sixth nuclear test. Pyongyang is still believed to be far from reaching its aim of building a missile capable of reaching the US mainland, but the secretive nation has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks and has carried out two rocket tests this month alone.
In a series of editorials the Rodong Sinmun newspaper —the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party — said the North’s forces were undeterred and called the US strike group’s imminent arrival “undisguised military blackmail”.
“Such threat may startle a jellyfish, but can never work on the DPRK,” it said today, using the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Pyongyang’s rhetoric intensifies every spring, when the US and South Korea hold joint exercises it sees as rehearsals for an attack on the North.