Kim ordered the country's strategic rocket units placed on standby to hit the U.S. mainland and U.S. military bases in the latest response by Pyongyang to the imposition of new international sanctions over it for its third nuclear test. The test was a violation of international agreements signed by the North.
North Korean forces should "mercilessly strike" the United States and its military bases in the Pacific, including Hawaii, Guam and in South Korea, said Kim, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Kim signed the order at an overnight meeting Thursday night, said the agency.
Some military experts doubt North Korea is capable of achieving such strikes but it could target South Korean territory and ships as it has done in recent years, but worried that the North could launch an attack close by that would prompt a retaliation from the U.S,. military, which vowed this week to depend its Asia ally.
"I don't think military action will be imminent," said Lim Eul-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
The United States has appealed for China, the North's only significant ally, to convince it to calm down and negotiate its future. U.S. policy for North Korea is to facilitate a change in the regime and the peaceful reunification of the nation split in two since the 1950s.
The Chinese Communist party has taken little action on the matter. Wang Dong, an academic at government-funded Peking University in Beijing, say the United States bears some responsibility for the situation.
North Korea become a nuclear power, "to negotiate from a position of strength," but the United States will not agree to the negotiations Pyongyang seeks, he said. President Obama stonewalled the "basketball diplomacy" effort that Kim tried with former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who recently visited Pyongyang, said Wang.
Beijing faces a difficult situation, he said.
"Many people believe that as long as China puts enough pressure on North Korea, the regime will collapse, and everything will be fine, but that's simplistic thinking," he said. "A collapse or a war scenario would be hugely costly. We need to respond in a very responsible and cautious way."
Meanwhile, in a typical piece in Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper reported tha,t "The whole country is bubbling like a melting pot. We can no more endure. Open fire at the enemies' stronghold! ... Reduce Washington to ashes with a preemptive precision nuclear strike!"
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