North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong said on Tuesday that Pyongyang does not want war, but if South Korea chooses a military confrontation or conducts a preemptive strike, the North's nuclear forces will have to attack.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, a high-ranking official in the government and the ruling party said that the South Korean Defense Minister's recent comments about a pre-emptive attack on North Korea was a "very big mistake."
South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said last Friday that his country's military has a variety of missiles with greatly improved firing range, accuracy and power, with "the ability to hit any target with accuracy and speed in North Korea."
On Sunday, Kim and another North Korean official denounced those remarks, warning that Pyongyang would destroy key targets in Seoul if it carried out any "dangerous military action" such as a preemptive strike.
Kim Yo Jong said in her second statement today that Pyongyang opposes a war that will leave the peninsula in ruins and ruins, and does not consider South Korea its main enemy.
"In other words, this means that unless the South Korean army takes any military action against our country, it will not be considered the target of our attack," she added.
"But if South Korea, for any reason - blinded by miscalculation or not - chooses to take military action such as a pre-emptive strike, the situation will change. In that case, South Korea itself will become a target," she said.
She said that if the South Korean army violated even an inch of North Korean territory, it would face an "unimaginable horrific catastrophe" and the North's nuclear combat force would inevitably have to do its duty.
"This is not a threat, but rather a detailed explanation of our response to a possible reckless military action by South Korea," she added, noting that Seoul could avoid that fate by giving up any "daydreams" of a preemptive attack on a nuclear-armed country.
North Korea has conducted more powerful missile tests this year, and officials in Seoul and Washington fear it may be preparing to resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 2017 amid stalled negotiations.