North Korea vows harsh retaliation against new UN sanctions

North Korea vows to bolster its nuclear arsenal and gain revenge of a “thousandfold” against the United States in response to tough UN sanctions imposed following its recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

The warning comes two days after the UN Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions to punish North Korea, including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called the US-drafted resolution “the single largest economic sanctions package ever leveled against” North Korea.

In a statement carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s government said the sanctions were a “violent infringement of its sovereignty” that was caused by a “heinous US plot to isolate and stifle” the country.

“We will make the US pay by a thousandfold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country,” the statement said.

— AP