North Korea threatens US with 'fiercer military counteraction'

ANKARA (AA) – North Korea threatened the US on Thursday with a "fiercer military counteraction" to its bolstered offer of extended deterrence to South Korea and Japan.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui strongly reacted in a statement to the recent meeting of the leaders of the three countries in Cambodia, saying it will eventually result in the Korean Peninsula entering an unpredictable phase.

"I clarify a serious warning stand toward the fact that the U.S., Japan and South Korea held a three-party summit a few days ago and talked about a ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence’ and ‘strong and resolute counteraction,’ describing the DPRK's legitimate and just military counteractions, incited by their war drills for aggression, as ‘provocation’," said North Korean top diplomat said in that statement published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on the weekend.

Choe accused the US and its allies of staging large-scale war drills one after the other, warning that it would lead to greater instability for Washington and its allies.

"They failed to contain the DPRK's overwhelming counteraction and, on the contrary, it resulted in increasing their security crisis," said the foreign minister.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen further following recent joint military drills by South Korea, and the US, as well as North Korean missile tests.

Earlier on Thursday, North Korea fired another short-range ballistic missile into the East Sea.

The missile launch was the first in slightly over a week, with the last missile fired by Pyongyang on Nov. 9.

"The U.S. will be well aware that it is gambling for which it will certainly regret," the North Korean foreign minister said, warning that increased military activity in the region would pose a more serious, realistic, and inevitable threat to the US and its vassal forces.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid