North Korea Threatens To Leave No American Alive 'To Sign A Surrender' On Anniversary Of Korean War
North Korea Issues Most Bellicose Threat This Year
Paul Vale— AP/The Huffington Post UK
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North Korea has threatened to leave no American alive should there be a second war on the divided Korean peninsula. The bellicose threat came from officials marking Monday’s anniversary of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War 62 years ago. Should there be further conflict, no one would be alive to sign the surrender, they added.
Pyongyang and other cities around the state were bedecked in bunting as North Koreans flocked to patriotic gatherings to mark the anniversary of the July 27, 1953, agreement that brought the three-year Korean war to an end with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
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North Korean soldiers watch as fireworks explode, Monday, July 27, 2015, in Pyongyang, North Korea as part of celebrations for the 62nd anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War
North Korean officials took the opportunity to offer the customary anti-US rhetoric while calling on the beleaguered nation to prepare for a final showdown with Washington. The anniversary is hailed in North Korea as a victory over the US, which fought with the South Koreans and UN allies against the North's forces, supported by China and the Soviet Union.
"Gone forever is the era when the United States blackmailed us with nukes; now the United States is no longer a source of threat and fear for us and we are the very source of fear for it," he said in the speech, the text of which was broadcast on North Korean television.
At a separate gathering held Sunday, Korean People's Army General Pak Yong Sik, the country's new defense minister, said that if the United States does not abandon its hostile policies toward Pyongyang and provokes another war, the North is prepared to fight until "there would be no one left to sign a surrender document."
"It is more than 60 years since the ceasefire on (the) land, but peace has not yet settled on it," he told the meeting, which included high-level officials, veterans and diplomats stationed in Pyongyang. "The past Korean War brought about the beginning of the downhill turn for the US, but the second Korean War will bring the final ruin to US imperialism."
The anniversary brought a festive atmosphere to the capital, with citizens using the holiday not only to show their patriotic pride by laying flowers before statues of North Korea's first president Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il, but also to enjoy the warm summer weather at parks and ice cream stands.
Six months after invading North Korean forces started the Korean War, North Korean leader and founder Kim Il Sung says in a speech that U.S. and South Korean forces were the actual invaders and had prompted his army to retaliate. Kim vows to annihilate the North's enemies.
Caption: In this 1951 photo, Kim Il Sung talks to a North Korean combatant at the battlefront. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Images) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
1994(02 of07)
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A North Korean negotiator threatens to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire."
Caption: Female North Korean traffic police officers gather in front of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) (credit:AP)
September 1996(03 of07)
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North Korea threatens "hundredfold and thousandfold retaliation" against South Korean troops who had captured or killed armed North Korean agents who had used a submarine to sneak into the South.
Caption: North Korean soldiers gather along a Pyongyang street during heavy snowfall on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) (credit:AP)
January 2002(04 of07)
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After President George W. Bush labels North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, Pyongyang calls the remark "little short of a declaration of war." North Korea's foreign ministry warns it "will never tolerate the U.S. reckless attempt to stifle the (North) by force of arms but mercilessly wipe out the aggressors."
In this Jan. 29, 2002 file photo, President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney is at rear.(AP Photo/Doug Mills) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
November 2011(05 of07)
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A day after South Korea conducts large-scale military drills near the island hit by the North in 2010, the North's Korean People's Army threatens to turn Seoul's presidential palace into a "sea of fire."
Caption: In this Feb. 16, 2013, image made from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, waves as he attends a statue unveiling ceremony at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in Pyongyang. (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video) (credit:AP)
April 2012(06 of07)
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North Korea holds a massive rally denouncing conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak as a "rat." It says he should be struck with a "retaliatory bolt of lightning" because of his confrontational approach toward Pyongyang.
Caption: South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak attends the 15th ASEAN - South Korea Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
June 2012(07 of07)
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North Korea's military warns that troops have aimed artillery at seven South Korean media groups to express outrage over criticism in Seoul of ongoing children's festivals in Pyongyang. It threatens a "merciless sacred war."
Caption: South Korean army soldiers patrol along the barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man) (credit:AP)