North Korea has been silent this week about an American soldier who ran across the Korean demilitarized zone and into its custody, but the communist regime has been vocal about U.S. and South Korean military activities.
The country’s defense minister said on Thursday that North Korea regards the arrival of a nuclear submarine in South Korea as a condition for using nuclear weapons, state media reported, according to Barron’s.
Kang Sun Nam’s comments raised the stakes in the standoff between the countries, bitter rivals since the Korean War in the 1950s.
“I remind the US military of the fact that the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea] law on the nuclear force policy,” the defense minister said in a statement, according to The Daily Mail.
“The US military side should realize that its nuclear assets have entered extremely dangerous waters.”
The statement was published by the official Korean Central News Agency.
A U.S. nuclear-armed submarine this week arrived for a port of call in South Korea for the first time in more than 40 years. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited the submarine Wednesday in southern Busan port, per The Daily Mail.
Washington last deployed one of its nuclear-capable submarines to South Korea in 1981, according to The Daily Mail.
North Korea’s statement comes amid the disappearance of American soldier Travis King. He crossed the border this week during a guided tour of the demilitarized zone.
The U.S.-led United Nations Command said it is working to find out more information on King’s whereabouts.
King reportedly was scheduled to return to Fort Bliss, Texas, this week after serving two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He could be facing more charges once he is returned to Texas.
His family in Racine, Wisconsin, spoke out about his situation.
“I think something [is] wrong with him. He ain’t thinking clear. I don’t think he would just run like that,” his grandfather, Carl Gates, told the Associated Press.
