North Korea said Monday it will bolster its nuclear arsenal "in a newly developed way" to counter what it calls U.S. hostile policy and
military threats toward the communist nation.
The North also claimed in a separate statement that the U.S. has brought "heavy weapons" into a
truce village that straddles the divided Koreas, warning of strong military action if they are not quickly withdrawn.
North Korea has stepped up its fiery rhetoric against the U.S. in recent weeks after Washington
sided with Seoul in condemning Pyongyang for the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March.
"The recent disturbing development on the Korean Peninsula underscores the need for the DPRK to bolster its nuclear deterrent in a newly developed way," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
The North did not elaborate on what the "newly developed way" means. The country runs nuclear
arms programs based on plutonium and uranium.
In a separate statement that followed, the Panmunjom Mission of the North's Korean People's Army (KPA) claimed the U.S. brought "various types of heavy weapons" into the truce village on June 26.
Panmunjom is jointly guarded by troops from the U.S and the two divided Koreas. It is where the U.S.-led U.N. Command signed a truce with China and North Korea to end the 1950-53 Korean War.
"The introduction of heavy weapons to the area around the conference hall where armed forces of
both sides stand in acute confrontation is a premeditated provocation aimed to spark off a serious military conflict," it said.
Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman for the United States Forces Korea (USFK), said his side was checking the North's claim. The U.S. has 28,500 forces stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against the North.
The U.S. "should withdraw all those weapons already introduced from the area at once," the KCNA quoted the mission as saying. "In case it does not comply with the principled demand of the KPA side, (Pyongyang) will take strong military countermeasures in the said area."
Tension already runs high along the Demilitarized Zone after North Korea vowed to shoot down South Korean loudspeakers if Seoul resumes its anti-Pyongyang broadcasts along the border as part of retaliation for the Cheonan sinking, which killed 46 sailors.
The North, which does not admit to any role in the sinking, did not elaborate on the heavy weapons that it said the U.S. forces had brought into the Panmunjom area.
In one of the latest threats involving the U.S., North Korea said last Thursday that it may slap heavier penalties on a U.S. man who entered the communist country illegally in January.
In April, a North Korean court sentenced Aijalon Gomes, a 30-year-old American, to eight years in a labor camp and fined him US$700,000 for illegal entry.
In the foreign ministry statement released Monday, the North argued that Washington had plotted nuclear strikes on Pyongyang, citing recently declassified U.S. documents.
"Historical facts prove that the DPRK was quite right when it made a decision to react to nukes with a nuclear deterrent," the spokesman said, according to KCNA.
The regime claimed in May that it had succeeded in producing a nuclear fusion reaction that could ultimately be used to build a hydrogen bomb. Experts have dismissed the claim as a bluff, saying commercializing nuclear fusion technology is still decades away.