North Korea said Thursday that U.S. sanctions on leader Kim Jong Un and other top officials for human rights abuses are tantamount to declaring war.
The country’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency saying the announcement of sanctions on Kim and 10 other officials was “peppered with lies and fabrications” and demanding the sanctions be withdrawn.
“Now that the U.S. declared a war on the DPRK, any problem arising in the relations with the U.S. will be handled under the latter’s wartime law,” the statement says, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
North Korea has already been sanctioned heavily because of its nuclear weapons program. However, Wednesday’s action by the Obama administration was the first time Kim has been personally targeted, and the first time that any North Korean official has been blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury in connection with reports of rights abuses.
The North Korean statement called the sanctions a “hideous crime.” It demanded that the sanctions be retracted or else “every lever and channel for diplomatic contact between the DPRK and the U.S. will be cut off at once.”
U.S. and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations, although they retain a channel of communication through the North’s diplomatic mission at the United Nations in New York.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the U.S. stands by its decision to impose the sanctions.
“We once again call on North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that only further raise tensions in the region. I can’t see how this rhetoric does anything but that,” he told reporters in Washington when asked about the North Korean response.
North Korea frequently uses harsh rhetoric and denunciations of the United States, and threats of hostilities are not uncommon.
On Wednesday, the State Department also released a report, mandated by Congress, on human rights abuses in North Korea. Administration officials said it was intended to name and shame responsible officials in North Korea’s government, and send a message to lower and mid-ranking officials to think twice before engaging in acts of cruelty and oppression.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday the new sanctions could cause North Korean officials to think twice before committing rights abuses.
“It is important,” he told reporters during a visit to Ukraine, “that all North Korean officials know and understand going forward that at all levels there are consequences for actions and they hopefully might consider the implications of those actions,” he said.
In addition to blacklisting Kim, the Treasury Department blacklisted officials at the Ministry of State Security — which it said administers political prison camps and is engaged in torture and inhumane treatment of detainees — and the Ministry of People’s Security which operates a network of police stations, interrogation centers and labor camps.
The State Department said North Korean political prison camps hold between 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners, including children and other family members.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
If I were president he would have one and only one option shut your mouth treat your people right and cease your nuke program or by tomorrow morning you and your country will be glowing a bright blue for years to come period
several low grade nukes with small blast and fall out radius would work just time. Of course a neutron bomb on the place with fat boy lives would solve a host of problems.
Sounds good don but this ain’t 1940 America is soft now don’t want to say the wrong words either ! Sad the old vets from ww2 r disgusted with our weakness look wat we did to Japan we could do to Syria! All this politics correctness and being shit on makes me sick and we’re going to pay as a nation!
Will someone take this creep out already…..
We have COP killers and Muslims in the United States of America that we have to deal with. Let That insane little Korean take care of his own 3rd World country and if he lets his Elephant mouth overload his hummingbird ass, then we will step up to the plate !
one strike force or a nuclear sub can do the job nicely.
We should have killed that gook years ago and quit screwing around with him. Before we do maby we could send him some of our Muslims beaners Etc. before we nuke him.
To proublem solved in a milla second
We don’t need to get involved with other countries problems, when our own country is in such a turmoil. We should be cleaning up our back yard first and stop trying to tell everyone else how to live!!!!!!!!!!! It’s time for America to wake up and smell the coffee. What give America the right to tell some other country right from wrong, when we are so screwed up our self? WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!
Kim Jong Un would be in trouble if he could try to use the United States to whip up nationalistic fervor at home. If he ever loses the ability to make his people believe they are fighting an external enemy they may begin to wonder why he is such a poor leader. The Kim dynasty has been a total failure.
At this point I don’t think many people are scared by John Kerry or Barack Obama’s words. Both do a lot of talking and provide nothing to back their words up.
This nut case in Korea is just a distraction from the human rights abuses happening right here in the USA. I am writing this comment with a home detention ankle bracelet on my left leg because I refused to sit down, shut up and take what the County Prosecutor said to do about my granddaughter’s rapists. There were two football tackles that raped her and the Prosecutor will not prosecute them. I flipped out and do not know what I said in response to a Protection Order against one of the rapists violating it! I spent 51 days in a 1200 inmate facility and have this GPS device on because of screaming at the Sheriff’s Department for failing to arrest the violator. I do not remember what I said, but was at least 60 miles away, driving back home from finding out I have bladder cancer. I did not and do not know where the perp lives. I had no way to carry out a threat if one was made. I have been accused of threatening to burn the little bast**d’s house down if the cops didn’t arrest him! I was locked up for over 51 days before being given an attorney! I can go on for many other human rights abuses that the Prosecutor has caused to take place but I think you get the idea! Tyranny and abuse happens here and it needs to stop! The two rapists are have never been arrested and charged! Welcome to small town justice and the little “empire” of small town politics! It can happen to anyone they want to shut=up. The trouble is they can also deal with a crusty ole SOB that will never shut up and let them get by with it! I will die before that ever happens. Once I force them to trial for this; I will be suing all of the SOBs and that is a promise!