North Korea denounced Washington’s deployment of a naval strike group to the Korean peninsula Tuesday, warning it was ready for “war” in a further escalation of tensions.
The Carl Vinson strike group cancelled a planned trip to Australia this weekend to head in the region, in a show of force, as Washington signaled it may act to shut down Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities. “This goes to prove that the US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase,” a spokesperson for the North’s foreign ministry said. “The DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US,” he said, using the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms,” the foreign ministry spokesman said. “We will hold the US wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences, to be entailed by its outrageous actions.”
