North Korea's military might on show as nuclear concerns rise

  • 27/04/2017

North Korea has released chilling images of its military might showing hundreds of long-range artillery units firing into the ocean.

It's in retaliation to a US-South Korea joint military excercise in the Korean peninsula which the isolated country sees as an act of aggression.

Explosions on a hillside during the US-South Korea joint military excercise (Reuters)
Explosions on a hillside during the US-South Korea joint military excercise (Reuters)

It comes as North Korea says the US-led pressure on the hermit nation over its nuclear ambitions won't work as concern grows over the country's nuclear capability.

The Trump administration says North Korea's nuclear ambitions are an urgent national security threat and will put diplomatic measures and economic sanctions in place.

Earlier this week, it held a briefing on the country for the entire Senate after which the State Department issued a statement saying Mr Trump wanted to dismantle North Korea's nuclear programme.

It also said the administration would be asking the international community to help achieve that and persuade the rogue leader Kim Jong Un's government to "de-escalate and return to a path of dialogue".

It comes around the same time the US and South Korea conducted military exercises on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has also been irked by what it sees as an act of aggression and has fired back literally and verbally.

"This is just a risky act little short of lighting the fuse of a total war under the present touch-and-go situation on the Korean peninsula as they openly cried out for ratcheting up pressure on the DPRK," the government said.

In retaliation for the exercise it lined up hundreds of long-range artillery on a beach, firing the weapons into the sea in an impressive show of force.

The US and South Korean governments maintain the regular drill, in which they pummel hillside targets, is a culmination of joint exercises in the peninsula with no particular enemy in mind.

In North Korea's latest statement, it puts the blame squarely on the US which it says is the "root cause" of wanting to have access to nuclear weapons.

"As the US has unsheathed a dagger to stifle the DPRK at any cost, the DPRK will stand against it with a sword of justice and cut the windpipe of the US imperialists."

North Korea will be a central talking point at the United Nations this week, with a special meeting led by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Newshub.