Updated on
Summary
North Korea will carry out military attacks again if the United States and South Korea violate its territorial waters, Pyongyang's state KCNA news agency said on Sunday. The report came as the US and South Korea began joint military exercises in waters west of the Korean Peninsula in the face of opposition by regional giant China and threats of consequences from Pyongyang. North Korea's state media warned on Saturday that 'no-one can predict the ensuing consequences' if a US carrier group goes ahead with a planned drill with South Korea in the Yellow Sea. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) statement came days after the hardline communist regime sharply heightened regional tensions with an artillery attack that killed two marines and two civilians on a South Korean border island. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington and its battle group plans four days of exercises from Sunday with a flotilla of South Korean warships in a show of force meant to deter Pyongyang. The KCNA report labeled the United States 'the arch-criminal who orchestrated the recent military clash, in which South Korea on Tuesday returned artillery fire at the North. The report repeated Pyongyang's claim that it attacked in response to South Korea conducting a military exercise that lobbed shells into waters that the North regime regards as its own. The KCNA report argued that its own 'counter-shelling' was 'a resolute and proper retaliation against the reckless military provocation of the enemy, and argued that the US was then quick to take advantage of the clash.
