North Korea will use nuclear weapons against its neighbor in an attack from South Korea.
“This is not just a threat.
This is a detailed explanation of our response to possible reckless military action by South Korea," Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un, said on Tuesday, according to a report by state news agency KCNA.
The South could avoid that fate by abandoning any "fantastic daydream" of a pre-emptive attack on a nuclear-armed state.
South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said Friday his country has a suite of missiles with vastly improved range, accuracy and performance, capable of accurately and quickly hitting any target in North Korea.
Unusual number of rocket tests
Kim Yo-jong called the statement a "very big mistake".
Pyongyang opposes a war that would wreck the peninsula and does not see South Korea as its main enemy.
However, if for some reason South Korea decides to go ahead with the "pre-emptive military action that Suh Wook has been touting," the situation will change and South Korea itself will become a target.
North Korea has already tested an unusually large number of increasingly powerful missiles this year.
South Korea and the US fear the country could prepare to test nuclear weapons for the first time since 2017 amid stalled negotiations.