North Korea has again threatened the United States with a pre-emptive nuclear strike if Washington attempts to remove Kim Jong Un as the country’s supreme leader.
Citing state media, Yonhap News Agency reported North Korea would carry out a nuclear strike “at the heart of the U.S.” if there’s an attempt on a regime change in Pyongyang.
“Should the U.S. dare to show even the slightest sign of attempt to remove our supreme leadership, we will strike a merciless blow at the heart of the U.S. with our powerful nuclear hammer, honed and hardened over time,” Yonhap News Agency reported, quoting a spokesman of the North Korean foreign ministry.
Last week, CIA Director Mike Pompeo was speaking at a security forum in Colorado when he suggested the international community should “separate” Un from the country’s nuclear weapons program.
READ MORE: North Korea could have intercontinental missile by next year
“It would be a great thing to denuclearize the peninsula, to get those weapons off of that. But the thing that is most dangerous about it is the character who holds the control over them today,” Pompeo said during the forum. “So from the administration’s perspective, the most important thing we can do is separate those two, right?
“Separate capacity and someone who might well have intent and break those two apart. And I am confident the intelligence committee will present a wide range of options for the president about how we might go about that,” the CIA boss said.
Yonhap News Agency reported Pompeo’s remarks “have gone over the line.”
“If the supreme dignity of the DPRK is threatened, (North Korea) must pre-emptively annihilate those countries and entities that are directly or indirectly involved in it by mobilizing all kinds of strike means including the nuclear ones,” Yonhap News Agency reported. “The likes of Pompeo will bitterly experience the catastrophic and miserable consequences caused by having dared to shake their little fists at the supreme leadership.”
However, Pompeo noted during the forum that Washington wasn’t working a plan to remove Un anytime soon.
“I wasn’t suggesting that was something we were working today to make happen tomorrow,” the CIA boss said. “But rather, to find a way to separate this fellow who day in and day out talks about the destruction of the West through the use of a nuclear armed missile.”
READ MORE: North Korea’s missile could hit Canada, and we might not be protected: experts
North Korea’s latest threat comes after a report the country has an intercontinental missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon as early as next year.
The Washington Post reported that a new confidential assessment by the Defence Intelligence Agency trims two years off the timeline for when North Korea could strike North American cities with atomic weapons. The assessment was triggered by recent North Korean missile tests that indicated the nation’s program was further along than expected.
— with a file from the Associated Press