DPRK leader says no hesitation to launch nuke attack if provoked with nukes

The top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said the country would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if an enemy makes nuclear provocations, reported Xinhua, quoting the country's state media on Thursday.

Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the DPRK, made the remark as he met in Pyongyang on Wednesday with the missile unit that participated in the launching drill of an "Hwasongpho-18" intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier this week, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

Kim said the test-launch demonstrated the loyalty and strong stand of the country's armed forces, and stressed that the maneuver served as "a clear explanation of the offensive counteraction mode and the evolution of the nuclear strategy and doctrine of the DPRK not to hesitate even (to launch) a nuclear attack when the enemy provokes it with nukes," the KCNA said.

He also underscored the necessity of developing the capability for preemptively attacking the enemy anywhere and maintaining a war posture, calling such a capability "the genuine defense capability" to make lasting peace.

Separately, in a Thursday press statement issued via the KCNA, Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, accused the United States and its followers of "persistently pushing the security environment on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia into a vortex of confrontation and conflict."

In the statement designed to respond to an open session of the United Nations Security Council on the DPRK's ICBM launch, she slammed the ceaseless military drills by the United States and its followers and the frequent demonstrations of U.S. strategic nuclear assets on the peninsula. She said they were clearly aimed at the DPRK and the "root cause" of the escalating situation in the region.