North Korea has ‘every right to make counter-measures’ including shooting down US bombers, says North Korean foreign minister
The tension increased between two nations since North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on 3rd September 2017.
The rhetoric has reached a new level in recent days, North Korea claims that United States has declared war on their country.
The North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-ho while responding to Donald Trump’s statement said that “The whole world should clearly remember it was the US who first declared war on our country.”
Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho particularly referred Trump’s statement that North Korea has ‘every right to make counter-measures’ including shooting down US bombers.
It should be noted that North Korea made these threats after a week of United Nations General Assembly annual meetings, escalated the invective-laced exchanges with President Trump and appeared to further preclude the possibility of a diplomatic exit from the biggest foreign crisis the administration has faced.
United States officials denied that the United States had declared war on the isolated, nuclear-armed country of 25 million people and did not immediately comment on the threat to shoot down American planes.
On the other hand, the National security adviser of Donald Trump Lt. Gen. Herbert Raymond Mc-Master said that he saw no prospect of talks with North Korea that would allow its “de facto nuclear capability.” North Korea’s top leader, Kim Jong-un, has already ruled out giving up nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said it had the right to fly sorties off the North Korean coast and would continue to do so. Col Robert Manning, a defence department spokesman said that the US had weighed military options in confronting the threat from North Korea.
It is unknown whether North Korea has the ability to challenge the U.S. Air Force today. Most of its surface-to-air missiles and fighter planes are decades old, many dating to the 1950s and 1960s, when they were acquired from the Soviet Union.
North Korea is not believed to possess more advanced surface-to-air missile systems like the Russian S300s and S400s, unless they were acquired clandestinely.
The US and North Korea have remained at war ever since, formally speaking. There was no peace treaty, and a UN armistice has remained in force since 1953.