Seoul: The UN sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear test are a declaration of war, and the country will "deal merciless blows" if the nation's sovereignty is violated, the country’s central government said Tuesday in its first response to the UN measures.
The North wants “peace but is not afraid of war,” the country's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The sanctions, passed unanimously on Saturday by the U.N. Security Council, ban the sale of major arms to the North and orders the inspection of cargo to and from the country. The US-initiated measure also calls for the freezing of assets of businesses supplying the North’s nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.
North Korea carried out its first test of a nuclear weapon on October 9, drawing widespread condemnation.
The isolated communist nation said it “vehemently denounces the resolution, a product of the US hostile policy toward (the North) and totally refutes it.”
“The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war” against the North, also known at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the statement said.
The country warned that if anyone used the UN resolution to infringe on the country's sovereignty, ''it will deal merciless blows at him through strong actions.''
The North “will closely follow the future US attitude and take corresponding measures,” the statement said, without specifying what those measures would be.
Pyongyang said that it would not bow to pressure.
The North “had remained unfazed in any storm and stress in the past when it had no nuclear weapons,'' the statement said. ''It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state.”
South Korean and Japanese government officials said on Tuesday that they had information pointing to a possible second test by the North, but could not confirm it.
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