The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Two supersonic US bombers took off from the island on a fly-over mission to Korea early this week.
Professor Yang Moo-Jin of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies said the level of detail in Pyongyang’s declaration was unusual.
“The North appears to be saying what it is going to do is within international laws,” he told AFP. “Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the North may translate this plan into reality.”
Delury added: “In a sense they are trying to ensure that the United States and South Korea, and Japan even, don’t mistake this for a real attack.”
During the Cold War in the 1980s the Soviet Union sent unarmed missiles to come down in the Pacific within 1,000 kilometres of Hawaii.
– ‘Life and death’ –
Analysts said a North Korean launch towards Guam would put the US in a dilemma: if it did not attempt to intercept the missiles, its credibility would be damaged and the North would feel emboldened to carry out a full-range ICBM test.
But if an intercept was attempted and any of the rockets got through it would undermine the effectiveness of the United States’ ballistic missile defence.
“This is a coercive threat to halt B-1 flights,” Adam Mount, senior fellow of the Center for American Progress said on Twitter.
“Unlike Trump’s vague, incendiary threat, DPRK’s is coercive, clear, specific, and has credible escalation potential. Response is difficult.”
Tensions on the Korean peninsula tend to increase when Seoul and Washington launch major military joint exercises, and the next, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, is set to kick off around August 21.
“Pyongyang’s interpretation of rhetoric from Washington is different from the way the West regards the North’s habitual threats. It views such fiery rhetoric from Trump as a matter of life and death,” said Hong Hyun-Ik, a senior researcher with the Sejong Institute.
Thousands of North Koreans marched through central Pyongyang Wednesday, waving clenched fists, as authorities put on a show of support for their stance.
One banner proclaimed: “10 million hearts burn with vows to defend the fatherland until death.”
Amid reports that Trump’s comments had taken his inner circle by surprise, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the Trump administration was all on “the same page”.
But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he did not believe “there is any imminent threat” to Guam or other US targets, and expressed hope that diplomatic pressure would prevail in the crisis.
United Nations imposed a seventh set of sanctions on Pyongyang at the weekend that could cost North Korea $1 billion a year, with even the regime’s main ally China voting for the US-drafted proposal.
