DPRK lambasts US-ROK deal for escalating tension

SEOUL — The Democratic People's Republic of Korea criticized a recent US-ROK agreement to bolster the deployment of US strategic assets in the region for escalating tension to the "brink of a nuclear war", state media KCNA said on Monday.

US President Joe Biden and Yoon Suk-yeol, president of the Republic of Korea, held a summit and issued the Washington Declaration last week, announcing the establishment of a new Nuclear Consultative Group and the upcoming visit of a US nuclear ballistic missile submarine to the ROK for the purpose of strengthening the so-called "extended deterrence".

The KCNA said the agreement stipulated the allies' willingness to take "the most hostile and aggressive action" against Pyongyang, citing an international security analyst.

The stationing of US strategic assets has placed the situation of the Korean Peninsula in a "quagmire of instability", and was intended to build "aggressive and exclusive military blocs" in the region, it said.

"It is just aimed at dodging the responsibility for the worst-ever nuclear-related crimes it has committed by systematically destroying and violating the nuclear nonproliferation system, and in particular, pushing the situation of the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war," the KCNA said.

"It is the hegemonic sinister aim pursued by the US to turn the whole of the ROK into its biggest nuclear war outpost in the Far East and effectively use it for attaining its strategy for dominating the world."

Pyongyang has lashed out at the Yoon-Biden summit, saying it consolidated its conviction to perfect its "nuclear war deterrent".

A day earlier, the DPRK also blasted Yoon's trip as "the most hostile, aggressive and provocative, dangerous trip for a nuclear war", the KCNA said on Sunday.

"There is no precedent that they (US and South Korea) designated the DPRK as a target for a nuclear attack publicly to the world and nakedly stated regular and sustained deployment of strategic nuclear assets to the Korean Peninsula," said a KCNA commentary.

The commentary then blasted Yoon, saying his "treacherous and submissive acts to the US are turning the ROK into a US arsenal and advanced base for a nuclear war and hurting the security and interests of not only the Korean Peninsula but also the region".

Agencies Via Xinhua