NK warns 'physical clash, war' on Korean Peninsula a matter of time, not possibility

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a party meeting in Pyeongyang, Dec. 1 in this photo released by the North's Korean Central News Agency. Yonhap

North Korea warned Sunday that a "physical clash and war" have become a matter of time on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the scrapping of an inter-Korean military tension reduction accord, threatening that South Korea will face "total collapse" if it undertakes any hostile act.

A North Korean military commentator made the threat in an article carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency, blaming the South for the scrapping of the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement that called for a series of military measures to reduce tensions along the border.

The North effectively scrapped the agreement last month after the South suspended part of the deal in protest of the North's successful launch of a military spy satellite. The North has since restored guard posts and brought heavy firearms along the border.

"Owing to the reckless and imprudent moves of the puppet group of traitors to nullify the north-south military agreement, the extreme military confrontation as serious as that before the adoption of the agreement has been created again on the Korean peninsula," the commentator said.

The 2018 deal was the "minimum mechanism and the final line for preventing accidental military conflict in the area along the Military Demarcation Line where huge armed forces stand in highest density and sharp confrontation in the world," the commentator said.

"The physical clash and war on the Korean Peninsula have become a matter of time, not possibility," the commentator said.

The commentator also said the North's satellite launch was the country's "legitimate and just right of a sovereign state" and that it makes no sense for the South to suspend the deal in response to the satellite launch that is not banned under the agreement.

If the North's satellite launch constitutes a violation of the 2018 accord, South Korea's launch of its own military spy satellite would be no different, the commentator said, referring to Friday's launch of the country's first indigenous military spy satellite.

"Any hostile act of the puppet group against the DPRK will lead to the miserable destruction of the puppet army and the total collapse of the ROK," the commentator said, using the acronyms of the official names of the North and the South.

"The prevailing situation proves once again the validity of the choice of the DPRK which has pushed forward with the bolstering of nuclear war deterrence and modernization of armed forces," the commentator said. "The provokers who completely nullified the north-south military agreement will have to surely pay a high price." (Yonhap)