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North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho holds a press conference outside the Millennium Hilton UN Plaza Hotel in New York on Sept. 25

North Korea announced that it considers US President Donald Trump’s threats against it a “declaration of war” and plans to invoke its powers of self-defense.

Visiting the US for a UN General Assembly session, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho held a press conference on the evening of Sept. 25 in front of the Millennium Hilton UN Plaza hotel in New York City.

“By declaring last weekend that our leadership ‘won’t be around much longer,’ Trump ultimately made a declaration of war,” Ri said.

“This is something that was said by a sitting US President, which makes it clearly a declaration of war,” he added. Ri went on to note that the UN Charter “recognizes the self-defense authority of individual member nations.”

“Now that the US has declared war, even if its strategic bombers do not cross the boundaries of our territorial airspace, we now possess at any time all rights to a self-defensive response, including the right to fire upon them,” he declared.

“Then we’ll see who ‘won’t be around much longer,’” he added.

Ri’s remarks appeared intended as a response to those made shortly after his Sept. 23 UN General Assembly speech by Trump, who called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man” and said the North Korean leadership “won’t be around much longer!”

The threat from Ri is a response to a show of force made by the US on the evening of Sept. 23, when B-1B strategic bombers – called the “Swan of Death” – traveled from Guam near North Korea’s airspace over the East Sea.

Early in his press conference, Ri said the international community had “deeply hoped the war of words between Choson [North Korea] and the US would not escalate into actions.”

“Now the whole world, including the groups of individual member nations attending the UN General Assembly, will remember that it was the US that first made a declaration of war to us,” he stressed. Ri traveled home to North Korea following the press conference, which lasted just over three minutes.

The US referred to the strategic bomber flyby cited by Ri as the “closest we have flown to North Korea in the 21st century.” During the operation, two B-1B aircraft reportedly flew north over the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the East Sea with escorting F-15C aircraft late at night on Sept. 23 before returning to base.

By Jung E-gil, senior staff writer

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