North Korea threatened to increase its nuclear capabilities and pay the US and South Korea “an unimaginably high price” for doing so, while sharply criticising its rival’s new defence guidelines, which it said indicate an intention to invade the North.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol approved the signing of joint guidelines on nuclear deterrence as part of efforts to improve their capabilities in dealing with North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal.
The guidelines were adopted a year after the two countries established a consultative body to strengthen information sharing on nuclear operations and discuss how to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons in contingencies.
In a statement released in state media on Saturday, North Korea’s Defense Ministry said the U.S.-South Korean guidelines revealed “their sinister intention to step up their preparations for nuclear war against” North Korea.
The statement said the growing nuclear threat from its enemies makes it urgent that North Korea further improve its nuclear deterrence readiness and add unspecified “key elements to the composition of deterrence.”
It said the US and South Korea would “pay an unimaginably high price” if they failed to stop their provocations.
Details of the U.S.-South Korean guidelines were not available, but experts said they essentially address how the two countries would integrate American nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons to respond to various possible eventualities caused by North Korean attacks and provocations.
According to experts, the United States and South Korea are expected to develop detailed conceptual and operational plans based on the guidelines and to review them in bilateral military exercises.
The guidelines are the first of their kind between the allies.
The US has repeatedly promised to use all its military capabilities to protect South Korea in the event of a North Korean attack. However, many experts in South Korea believe that the US lacks a plan for how it will implement its extended deterrence policy towards its ally.
South Korea does not have nuclear weapons.
North Korea argued that it was compelled to pursue nuclear weapons to counter the US nuclear threat.
Representatives of the United States and South Korea have categorically stated that they have no intention of attacking North Korea.
Concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program have increased in recent years after the North conducted a series of provocative missile tests and openly threatened to use nuclear weapons preemptively in potential conflicts with its opponents.