Anchor: Following a port call in South Korea by a nuclear-capable U.S. Navy submarine on Tuesday, the defense minister of North Korea lashed out with threats of nuclear retaliation. Seoul's defense ministry fired back with its own warning that a nuclear attack by Pyongyang will be met with a devastating response.
Tom McCarthy has the details.

Report: A visit to South Korea by a nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine provoked a warning of nuclear retaliation by North Korea on Thursday.

In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, defense minister Kang Sun-nam denounced what he claimed was the first deployment of strategic nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula in 40 years with the port call by the Ohio-class USS Kentucky in Busan on Tuesday.

Kang warned that such a move may meet the conditions established under Pyongyang’s law on nuclear policy authorizing a nuclear offensive should the regime come under nuclear attack or assess that one is imminent.

The minister added that the U.S. military should realize that its nuclear assets have entered “extremely dangerous waters” with the submarine deployment that coincided with the inaugural meeting of the S. Korea-U.S. Nuclear Consultative Group(NCG) the same day.

The South Korean defense ministry was quick to respond with a rebuke of the North’s statement, contending that the sub visit and NCG meeting were legitimate defense measures against the regime’s continued nuclear and missile threats, which it criticized as violations of UN Security Council resolutions.

The ministry in Seoul slammed the regime’s adoption of the law permitting preemptive nuclear strikes and related exercises as well as repeated nuclear threats against the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

It warned Pyongyang that any nuclear attack on the alliance will be met with an immediate, overwhelming and decisive response.

The U.S. Department of Defense also weighed in, saying that the deployment of the Kentucky in accordance with the allies’ Washington Declaration and the NCG meeting were “prudent responses” to the North’s “escalatory and dangerous behavior.”
Tom McCarthy, KBS World Radio News.