North Korea Accuses US Of Creating Nuclear War Threat Near Korean Peninsula

North Korea Tuesday criticized the United States for its joint military drills with South Korea held between June 13 and 20. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), in a commentary, held Washington responsible for nuclear war threat on the Korean Peninsula.

The U.S. sent two B-52 Stratofortress, which can be equipped with long-range nuclear air-to-ground missiles, to fly over the skies near South Korea during the exercises with the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force. KCNA said that Japanese planes that took part in the exercises targeting North Korea.

“The U.S. and South Korean puppet military authorities openly made pubic that the strategic region meant the Korean peninsula. As already disclosed, ‘operation for precision air-raids’ upon the nuclear facilities and force of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] is openly being prepared in the U.S.,” KCNA said.

The North also reportedly said that the U.S. did not have any right to talk about the reclusive state’s denuclearization — something that Washington has been seeking from North Korea.

KCNA reportedly said that “a formation of nuclear strategic bombers B-52H under the 8th Air Force of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces on Guam was busy with a nuclear bomb dropping drill in South Korea on June 17 under the pretext of the exercise for long-range flight and strike at strategic targets.”

Last Wednesday, the North Korean foreign ministry accused the U.S. of continuing its “hostile acts” against Pyongyang and pushing it to strengthen its nuclear deterrence against Washington. The foreign ministry said that the country “will continue taking a series of steps for bolstering up the nuclear deterrent for self-defense both in quality and quantity to cope with the ever-escalating U.S. hostile acts against the former.”

This follows North Korea’s testing of its fifth and sixth intermediate-range ballistic missiles late June. The U.S., South Korea and Japan condemned the missile tests and the U.N. Security Council criticized the tests and called for the renewed enforcement of sanctions imposed after the reclusive country’s fourth nuclear test earlier this year.