North Korea’s secretive, totalitarian regime has issued several provocations under leader Kim ... more >North Korea threatened Tuesday to nullify its armistice agreement with South Korea, effectively restarting the Korean war after 60 years, as the U.N. Security Council meets in New York to consider new sanctions against the rogue state for its illegal nuclear weapons program.
In statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, Pyonyang’s military said the threat was in response to international moves to punish its recent nuclear test and to joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises scheduled to start on Monday.
SEE RELATED: U.S., China agree to sanction North Korea for nuclear test
“When the war exercises turn into their main phase after March 11, the Korean War armistice agreement that has existed in its name only, will come to an end,” the agency quoted the North’s military command as saying.
The military also said, if the U.S.-South Korean exercises codenamed Key Resolve go ahead as planned Monday, it will sever the only direct communication between North and South — the telephone link across the border at the village of Panmunjom.
North Korea is known for its harsh rhetoric, reported Seoul-based Yonhap News agency, but Tuesday’s announcement represents a ratcheting up of its intensity. The two divided Korean states are technically at war, with no peace treaty signed at the end of the three-year Korean conflict in 1953.
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Shaun Waterman is an award-winning reporter for The Washington Times, covering foreign affairs, defense and cybersecurity. He was a senior editor and correspondent for United Press International for nearly a decade, and has covered the Department of Homeland Security since 2003. His reporting on the Sept. 11 Commission and the tortuous process by which some of its recommendations finally became ...
By Jay Sekulow
The left's outrage over the IRS turns to a plea to 'move on'
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Politics and pop culture from the perspective of an independent hip-hop conservative
Al Maurer provides a common sense, conservatarian, Constitutional conservative perspective from the battleground state of Colorado
World's Ugliest Dog Contest
26 Photos
Spelling Bee finale
45 Photos
Marines train Afghan soldiers
4 Photos
Rolling Thunder 2013
24 Photos
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
13 Photos
