3rd LD Writethru: DPRK condemns U.N. resolution, threatens retaliation

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday strongly condemned the new U.N. Security Council resolution that tightens sanctions on the DPRK, threatening to take resolute measures against it.

The new resolution, which further tightens sanctions against the DPRK, is the "worst and most explicit international criminal act that aims to isolate and stifle the defensive and just sovereign state," the DPRK government and the Foreign Ministry said in two respective statements.

The statement issued by a spokesman for the government described the resolution as "the most outrageous provocation against the DPRK," saying it severely threatens the DPRK's sovereignty and poses a frontal challenge to the country's just cause.

The resolution is "a criminal document fabricated by the U.N. Security Council" at the behest of the United States, other major countries and their followers, said the statement.

It stressed that the DPRK "has never recognized any U.N. resolution on sanctions against it."

The DPRK therefore firmly rejected the resolution and will take "resolute counter-measures," which involve all methods including "strong and merciless physical counter-actions," it said.

The DPRK will not remain an onlooker to infringement on its sovereignty and right to existence, the statement said.

It warned that in case an undesired incident should take place on the Korean Peninsula, the United States and other major countries that took part in supporting the resolution would "be held wholly countable for ensuing consequences."

In addition, the DPRK will continue to stick to the line of developing both its national economy and nuclear programs and will further bolster self-defensive nuclear deterrence and build the country into a "satellite power," according to the statement.

Pyongyang will also launch a worldwide campaign to end the "unfair and unequal international political order," it said, adding that now justice and truth are trampled down by the yardstick of the United States and other major countries.

Meanwhile, the other statement issued by a spokesman for the foreign ministry called previous U.N. resolutions on the DPRK "a product of highhandedness practiced beyond the mandate of the U.N. Security Council."

The spokesman reemphasized the legitimacy of the DPRK's satellite launch program and the self-defensive nature of its nuclear arsenal development.

It will be "serious miscalculation to think the sanctions would work on the DPRK," the spokesman warned.

Earlier in the day, the official KCNA news agency reported that top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un has said the military should be prepared to fire its deployed nuclear warheads at any time possible.

The DPRK will continue to develop its nuclear weapons as the only way to defend the state sovereignty, Kim said when he recently guided a test-fire of newly developed large-caliber multiple rocket launcher.

On Thursday, the South Korean Defense Ministry said the DPRK fired several short-range projectiles into eastern waters after the U.N. Security Council voted to adopt a new resolution that includes toughest-ever sanctions on Pyongyang. Endi