Pyongyang condemns US nuclear submarine visit to South Korea as security threat

North Korea denounced the recent entry of a US nuclear-powered submarine into South Korea, warning that it poses a serious security threat to the Korean Peninsula.

The criticism came in a statement issued by the North’s Ministry of National Defence, dated December 24, following the arrival of the USS Greeneville, a Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, at a naval base in Busan, about 330 kilometres southeast of Seoul, on December 25, Yonhap reports.

According to South Korea’s Navy, the port call was intended to allow the submarine to replenish supplies and provide rest for its crew.

In its statement, the North accused Washington of intensifying nuclear instability in the region. “Recently, the US is getting more undisguised in its attempt to permanently fix a grave nuclear instability element in the security environment of the DPRK,” the ministry said, using the abbreviation for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The repeated emergence of the US strategic asset … constitutes a grave act of causing instability and escalating military tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the region,” it added.

The statement also pointed to Washington’s recent reaffirmation of its “extended deterrence” commitment to Seoul, as well as US support for South Korea’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. The ministry accused the United States of nearing “the critical level” in its efforts to gain strategic advantage by transforming the US–South Korea military alliance into “a nuclear confrontation bloc sharing its nuclear weapons.”

According to the ministry, these moves once again confirmed “the US confrontational intention to cement the structure of a nuclear-to-nuclear collision with the DPRK.” It stressed that Pyongyang’s stance remains unchanged in its “will to strongly propel the development of the defence capabilities” needed to safeguard its security.

“The US nuclear threat that persists in the vicinity of our state is pushing us to securing earlier the strategic retaliatory capability for wiping out such threatening entities within the scope of our maritime sovereignty,” the ministry said, warning that North Korea would take “countermeasures corresponding to the US nuclear muscle flexing.”

By Vafa Guliyeva