A North Korean official threatened a nuclear strike on the White House and the Pentagon Sunday, calling it a strike on “the sources of all evil.”
Relations between the United States and North Korea have been cooling over the summer as North Korea put two American tourists on trial in June and the US participated in a series of military drills with South Korea. But the latest threat is a major escalation in rhetoric.
Hwang Pyong-So, director of the military’s General Political Bureau, made the threat during a speech in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War, Agence France-Presse reported.
Hwang, a vice-marshal in the People’s Army, said that the military drills, one of which including the deployment of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, increased tensions in the region.
“If the U.S. imperialists threaten our sovereignty and survival… our troops will fire our nuclear-armed rockets at the White House and the Pentagon — the sources of all evil,” Hwang said.
His words come in defiance of an official condemnation issued by the United Nations Security Council on July 17. The Security Council censured the country after it simulated a short-range missile strike on South Korea on Saturday, in violation of various UN resolutions prohibiting North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.
While North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, it presently lacks the technical to strike at the continental United States or US bases in the Pacific. It is believed that they have yet to master the miniaturization processes necessary to mount a warhead on a missile. However, it does possess a variety of short and mid-range missiles capable of striking South Korea and Japan.
