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A South Korean F-15K jet fighter flies during military exercises in Daegu

North Korea has threatened to take military action, declaring that it is prepared to “wipe out” South Korean President Park Geun-hye and the Blue House.

The threat was in response to an exercise carried out by the South Korean air force on Mar. 21 that involved simulated precision strikes on key North Korean facilities.

On Mar. 23, the South Korean government urged Pyongyang to immediately cease its “nasty and vulgar behavior.”

“Large-caliber rocket launchers are primed to wipe out in an instant the Blue House, where Park Geun-hye is lurking,” North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CRPF) said in a “grave report” released on the morning of Mar. 23.

“With the push of a button, the Blue House will become a sea of fire; our attack will reduce it to ashes,” the CPRF said. “From this moment, the army of the revolution will be aimed at a just war of retaliation in order to extirpate the clique of the traitor Park Geun-hye.”

This is the first time that the North’s CPRF has issued an “important announcement.”

The reason for its verbal attack, the North explained, was because “the warmongers in the puppet military regime, egged on by the American imperialists, pushed ahead with a diabolical scheme they called a ‘precision strike exercise’ designed to destroy the headquarters of our central command.”

“Operations designed to attack bases inside the North, to seize Pyongyang, and to launch a submarine strike were severe provocations carried out on sea and on land targeting our military leadership,” the CPRF said. “The drill for the targeted strike on headquarters was aimed at attacking our leadership from the air. It was the most overt and dangerous of all the rash military actions they have carried out.”

North Korea was responding to a large-scale drill by a large formation of attack flights from the South Korean air force that was held on Mar. 21. The drill involved 16 aircraft in three models - the F-15K, the F-16 and the FA-50 light attack craft - along with two C-130H transport planes. This was the first time the South Korean air force included transport planes in a drill involving a large formation of attack flights.

In a press release, the South Korean air force reported that it had “carried out an air force operation that would effectively sow chaos in the enemy’s operations and weaken the enemy’s will to prosecute the war, presuming a scenario in which a strike is carried out on the enemy’s key military facilities.”

“We are strongly warning North Korea about the vulgar criticism it made of our commander in chief and the terrorist threats represented by its references to a ‘sea of fire’ and a ‘war of retaliation’ directly aimed at the Blue House,” Seoul said in a statement released by the spokesperson of the Unification Ministry on Wednesday.

“If North Korea carries out any kind of provocation against us, our military will retaliate firmly and mercilessly, and North Korea will bear full responsibility for all of the consequences.”

By Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporter

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