North Korea: 'Nuclear war may break out any moment'

close

Video

Amb. Bolton: North Korea's nuclear war threat is propaganda

The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. weighs in on what the warning means for American policy.

North Korea told other countries on Monday to avoid participating in military action with the U.S. to avoid retaliation and warned that a “nuclear war may break any moment.”

The threat was issued at the United Nations where North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong prepared remarks for a talk on nuclear weapons at a U.N. committee. He ended up not reading the threat out loud.

“As long as one does not take part in the U.S. military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country,” read the North Korean ambassador’s prepared remarks, according to Reuters.

“The entire U.S. mainland is within our firing range and if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe,” the statement said.

The confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea has peaked following a number nuclear missile tests threatening U.S. allies in the region and hostile exchanges between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Kim told a U.N. disarmament committee that his country is the only state threatened by “such an extreme and direct nuclear threat" from the U.S. and accused the U.S. government of trying to stage a “secret operation aimed at the removal of our supreme leadership.”

“Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiation table under any circumstance,” the North Korean official told the committee.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.