North Korea vows 'fiercer' military responses to US, allies

SEOUL: North Korea warned on Thursday of “fiercer military responses” to US efforts to boost its security presence in the region with its allies, state media said, saying Washington is taking a “gamble it will regret”.

North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, slammed a recent trilateral summit between the United States, South Korea and Japan, during which the leaders criticised Pyongyang’s weapons tests and pledged greater security cooperation.

Pyongyang has tested a record number of missiles this year, including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile, and fired hundreds of artillery shells into the sea more recently as South Korea and the United States staged exercises, some of which involved Japan. On Thursday, the South Korean military reported another ballistic missile launch off North Korea’s east coast.

At the trilateral talks, US President Joe Biden reaffirmed a commitment to reinforce extended deterrence and defend the two Asian allies with a “full range of capabilities”, including nuclear weapons.

Choe said the three countries’ “war drills for aggression” failed to rein in the North but would rather bring a “more serious, realistic and inevitable threat” upon themselves.

“The keener the US is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence’ to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities … the fiercer the DPRK’s military counteraction will be,” Choe said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

She referred to her country by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The US will be well aware that it is gambling, for which it will certainly regret,” Choe added.

The United States has been saying since May that North Korea is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017, but its actual timing remains unclear.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo said in a joint statement after the summit that Pyongyang’s nuclear testing would incur a “strong and resolute response.”

Choe said the North’s military activities are “legitimate and just counteractions” to the US-led drills.