North Korea threatens tough physical actions after UN sanctions

Pyongyang, Aug 8 : North Korea on Tuesday threatened to take tough physical action after a new package of sanctions was imposed against the country by the UN Security Council, which Pyongyang denounced as illegal and a terrorist act.

In a statement, Pyongyang charged back against the latest sanctionsas a punitive measure for the regime's ongoing missile tests, and launched new threats against the US, as well as the rest of the countries that support Washington, reports Efe news.

Washington and its allies "should not forget that we are ready to ruthlessly take strategic measures involving physical actions by fully mobilizing our national power," a spokesperson for the North Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee said in a statement published by the official news agency KCNA.

The committee, affiliated with the Workers' Party of North Korea, also accused the US of forcing other countries to adopt the sanctions through fear, and dismissed the UN resolution as a terrorist act against Pyongyang.

In a separate statement released on Tuesday by KCNA, the Kim Jong-un regime also blamed Seoul for conducting live fire exercises near the western border with North Korea, and threatened the South that it "can turn western front-line islands and even Seoul into a sea of flame".

The statements from Pyongyang come after its first direct statement on Monday regarding the UN sanctions package, criticising those measures and threatening to retaliate against the US.

North Korea argues that its nuclear and missile programs are only aimed at deterring an eventual invasion from the US, a country with which the regime has been technically at war for more than 60 years.

The latest UN sanctions come as a response to North Korea's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch on July 4, which was a successful milestone that was followed by a second missile launch of this type on July 28.