North warns U.S. that any military action would be 'toying with suicide'

North Korea's state media on Wednesday issued a warning to the United States to not "test" the regime's resolve and called any military action by Washington equivalent to "toying with suicide."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center, rejoices after the regime successfully tested its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Nov. 18 in footage recorded by the state-controlled Korean Central Television. [YONHAP]

North Korea's state media on Wednesday issued a warning to the United States to not "test" the regime's resolve and called any military action by Washington equivalent to "toying with suicide."

In an editorial titled, “Korea under the great Kim Jong-un will be endlessly successful,” the ruling Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun called 2022 “our year that we kicked off with a high-technology hypersonic missile test,” followed by “awe-inspiring months when the massive roar of the strongest strategic weapon, the Hwasong-17 missile, reverberated around the planet.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was present at the regime’s first successful test launch of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last month, which the Rodong Sinmun said “subdued and crushed U.S. warmongering” and demonstrated “the determination of the [North Korean] public under the great Kim Jong-un to never tolerate any act that could affect their dignity and sovereignty.”

The editorial also accused the United States of “using the pretext of our justified self-defense measures to threaten regional peace and stability by sneaking around several times in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula to conduct provocative large-scale exercises with their lackeys,” referring to joint military drills by the South Korean and U.S. militaries to bolster their security cooperation amid relentless weapons testing by the North.

The Rodong Sinmun boasted that North Korea was the only country “to have realized its declared will to exact a most powerful revenge in a confrontation with the United States” and described “all those who continue to try to test us and ignore [our] repeated warnings” as “running counter to history and toying with suicide.”

The editorial came after U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a press briefing on Tuesday (local time) that Washington believes Pyongyang is ready to undertake additional military provocations, including a long-anticipated seventh nuclear test.

“We continue to believe the possibility of a seventh nuclear test is on the table,” Price said, adding that the United States believes “all technical preparations appear to be in place,” and that “only a political decision” remains to be made before the North proceeds with a nuclear weapons test.

But Price did not specify if an ICBM launch by the North on a normal, long-distance trajectory — and not at the usual lofted angle that limits missile range — would “cross a red line,” as asked by a reporter at the press briefing.

On Monday, the North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong warned that the regime would soon conduct a long-distance missile launch to silence critics who doubt the regime’s ability to launch a nuclear weapon that can re-enter the atmosphere without disintegrating, according to Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“It seems others want to disparage our strategic weapon capabilities by saying it can’t be demonstrated through a lofted-angle launch and must be proven through a normal-angle launch,” she said, adding that the latter was “something that may happen soon.”

Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that U.S. deterrence capabilities would not be affected by the grounding of the U.S. Air Force’s entire B-2 stealth bomber fleet for safety checks after a B-2 was forced to make an emergency landing on the runway at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Dec. 10.

According to Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the B-52 fleet, which is both conventionally and nuclear-equipped, provides “redundant capability” to make up for the grounding of the B-2 fleet.

Ryder also said the U.S. military has “plenty of redundancy and resiliency built into [its] combat capabilities” and denied there are “vulnerabilities” in the event of a potential conflict involving Russia, China or North Korea.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]