SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has said the country’s nuclear weapons must be ready for use “any time,” in an expected ramping up of bellicose rhetoric following the UN Security Council’s adoption of tough new sanctions on Pyongyang.
According to the reports, we must always be ready to fire our nuclear warheads at any time,” Kim was quoted as saying by the North’s official news agency on Friday.
South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it was trying to determine if the projectiles, launched at 10 a.m. (8.00 p.m. ET) from the North’s east coast, were short-range missiles or artillery fire.
The firing came after the U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution on Wednesday dramatically expanding sanctions on North Korea following its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range rocket launch on Feb. 7.
Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said North Korea’s action showed it had not taken the proper lesson from the latest round of sanctions.
