SEOUL, South Korea — A day after the United States flew a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber in a show of force against the North, the influential sister of North Korea's leader warned Tuesday that her country is prepared to take "quick, overwhelming action" against it and South Korea.
The B-52 bomber training exercise between the United States and South Korea on Monday was the most recent in a string of exercises between the allies in recent months. Later this month, their militaries will revive their largest field exercises.
Although Kim Yo Jong made no specific mention of any intended actions in her statement, North Korea has a history of testing missiles in response to joint military exercises with South Korea because it sees them as a practice for an invasion.
"We keep an eye on the restless military moves by US forces and the South Korean puppet military and are always ready to take appropriate, quick, and overwhelming action at any time according to our judgment," Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
"The demonstrative military moves and all sorts of rhetoric by the United States and South Korea, which are so frantic as not to be overlooked, undoubtedly provide (North Korea) with conditions for being forced to do something to cope with them," she said.
Last Friday, the South Korean and US militaries announced that from March 13 to 23, they would conduct computer-simulated command post training and resume their largest springtime field exercises, which were last held in 2018.
Since 2018, the allies have cancelled or reduced some of their regular drills to support their now-dormant diplomacy with North Korea and prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they have resumed their exercises after North Korea conducted a record number of missile tests last year and openly threatened to use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with its rivals.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry described the U.S. B-52 bomber's flyover as a reckless provocation that plunges the situation on the peninsula "deeper into the bottomless quagmire" in a separate statement on Tuesday. There is no guarantee that there won't be a violent physical conflict, according to the statement made by the unnamed head of the ministry's foreign news office, if U.S.-South Korean military provocations continue.
When tensions with the United States and South Korea are at their highest, North Korea frequently uses venomous rhetoric. A nuclear test or the launch of a brand-new intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at the U.S. mainland are two potential actions North Korea could take, according to observers.
Kim Yo Jong threatened to make the Pacific the North's firing range last month. She stated on Tuesday that a potential American attempt to intercept a North Korean ICBM would be viewed as a declaration of war by Pyongyang. She cited a South Korean media report claiming that if a North Korean ICBM is test-launched toward the Pacific, the U.S. military plans to shoot it down.
To avoid neighboring nations, all known North Korean ICBM tests have been conducted at sharp angles, and the missiles have all landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
On Monday, South Korea took a step to resolve a contentious historical disagreement with Japan in an effort to strengthen the trilateral security cooperation between Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington. The next step entails a strategy for compensating Koreans who were subjected to forced labor during Tokyo's colonial rule using local resources without requiring Japanese corporations to contribute to the reparations.
Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, praised the leaders of South Korea and Japan on Monday, saying that they "realized you have to deal with historic issues" and that the "potential of collaboration into the future is more important and has a greater value."