North Korea threatens harsh response to South Korea-U.S. drills

Kim Yo Jong, head of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s General Affairs Department, sharply criticized the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise Freedom Shield on March 10, warning it could lead to “terrible consequences.” Analysts say her mention of all available special means and a “super-powerful offensive” may signal North Korea’s potential readiness to employ nuclear forces in a crisis.

In a morning statement, Kim described the FS exercises as a demonstration of military force by hostile actors near North Korea’s sovereign security zone and warned they could produce “terrible consequences beyond imagination.” She added, “We will manage strategic threats to national and regional security through the responsible exercise of deterrent power, including the full deployment of all available special means that must be overwhelming.”

“We will continually and repeatedly demonstrate to our adversaries the scale and lethality of our war deterrence,” Kim said. “We will deploy catastrophic destructive power to ensure that the enemy cannot even imagine opposing us and to safeguard the nation’s firm peace.” This was Kim’s first public statement since her promotion to minister-level status at the party’s ninth congress, and her role in issuing messages toward South Korea and the United States appears unchanged.

A South Korean Ministry of Unification official said, “While the statement contains threatening language, it did not directly reference the United States or mention nuclear weapons.” The official added that the remarks were a measured response to the joint drills given the current security situation. Analysts suggest North Korea moderated its tone to avoid provoking Washington amid heightened uncertainty due to developments in the Middle East.

Immediately after Kim’s statement, U.S. forces reportedly deployed surveillance aircraft specialized in monitoring North Korean ballistic missile activity, including RC-135U Combat Sent and RC-135W Rivet Joint reconnaissance planes, to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.


Na-Ri Shin journari@donga.com