North Korea threatens to ‘sink’ Japan

North Korea has threatened to use nuclear weapons against neighboring Japan and “sink” the island country.

“Japan is no longer needed to exist near us. The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Thursday, citing a statement by the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee.

Juche refers to Pyongyang’s ideology of “self-reliance.”

Shortly after the North’s statement, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denounced the comments and described them as “extremely provocative.”

Pyongyang has been extremely critical of Tokyo over the latter’s close ties with Washington, which the North regards as its archenemy. Furthermore, Japan is one of the strong advocates of tougher United Nations (UN) sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

Late last month, the North launched missile a new intermediate-range missile over Japan’s Hokkaido Island. It landed in the Pacific, some 1,200 kilometers east of the northern island. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the time described the launch as an “unprecedented, serious and grave threat” and called for a UN Security Council meeting, urging for “increased pressure on North Korea in cooperation with the international community.”

However, the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, an affiliate of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said on Thursday that “A telling blow should be dealt to them [the Japanese] who have not yet come to senses after the launch of our [intercontinental ballistic missile] ICBM over the Japanese archipelago.”

The KCNA had previously said that the missile had been an intermediate-range strategic ballistic missile.

North Korea said on September 3 that it had conducted a successful hydrogen bomb test and that the bomb was small enough to fit on a missile. Experts say the bomb was about three times more powerful than America’s atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.