North Korea Threatens Nuclear Test ‘At Any Moment,’ Vows To Accelerate Nuclear Program

North Korea defiantly threatened that it will carry out a nuclear test at any time and at any location. On Monday, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson said, “The DPRK’s measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership.”

This hints that Pyongyang may be launching a long-range missile or conducting another nuclear test, which would be their sixth. North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile tests are violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, something that the reclusive country has been doing since at least 2002.

The isolated nation also vowed to accelerate their nuclear weapons program.

“Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called ‘maximum pressure and engagement,’ the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.

The spokesperson said Pyongyang was “fully ready to respond to any option taken by the United States.”

The spokesman said if North Korea was not armed with “the powerful nuclear force” the United States would have “committed without hesitation the same brigandish aggression act in Korea as what it committed against other countries.”

The spokesperson added that North Korea will continue bolstering its “preemptive nuclear attack capabilities unless Washington scrapped its hostile policies.”

Experts believe North Korea is making progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

This comes at a time when tensions are running sky-high on the Korean peninsula.

““There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” President Donald Trump said this week.

Trump did say that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “a pretty smart cookie” for being able to stay in power after taking over the country at a young age.

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific Command, had this to say about the situation, “The North Korean crisis is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

On Sunday, U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster went after the isolated regime.

“North Korea poses a grave threat to the United States, our great allies in the region, South Korea, and Japan … but also to China and others. And so it’s important, I think, for all of us to confront this regime,” he told Fox News.

“This regime that is pursuing the weaponization of a missile with a nuclear weapon. And so this is something that we know we cannot tolerate … The president has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or another.”

“We do have to do something, and so, we have to do something, again, with partners in the region and globally. And that involves enforcement of the U.N. sanctions that are in place. It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further. And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary.”

“There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said.

In another troubling development, Japan has dispatched its biggest warship to protect U.S. supply ships in the region. The 19,500-ton, 814-foot Izumo helicopter carrier is the pride of Japan’s navy and will guard supplies headed to the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group in waters near the Korean Peninsula.

The Izumo is the first warship deployed outside of military exercises under new laws passed in 2015 that allow Japan to come to the aid of an ally under attack known as “collective self-defense.”

On the bright side, North Korea had its third missile launch failure in the past two months on Saturday and their tanks can’t even roll down a street in a parade without breaking down, so maybe we have nothing to worry about at all.

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[CNBC/9News/Independent]

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