North Korea ready for all-out war: Kim

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says Pyongyang is ready for an “all-out war” amid recent developments that followed its third nuclear test.

Kim toured two islands near the disputed maritime border with South Korea on Thursday and visited military units on the frontline that shelled South Korea in 2010.

The North Korean leader said the country was “fully ready to fight a Korean style all-out war,” North Korea’s KCNA news agency said on Friday.

While addressing the troops stationed on the islands, Kim said he would order a “great advance” along the entire frontline even if the slightest provocation occurred.

Kim visited artillery units on Mu Island that shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong in 2010. Four people were killed following the shelling and an exchange of fire was generated between the two sides.

The North Korean leader “solemnly declared that if the enemy dares recklessly preempt firing and even a single shell drops” on North Korean territory, the army “should lead the battle to a sacred war for national reunification, not confining it to a local war on the southwest region,” the KCNA stated.

Meanwhile, state television showed Kim looking at the South Korean island with binoculars, while being accompanied by senior members of the country’s leadership.

“He reconfirmed in detail reinforced fire power strike means and targets of the enemy deployed on five islets,” and “defined the order of precision strikes” on the targets, the KCNA reported.

Kim’s tour to the islands coincided with a meeting of the UN Security Council, where a new series of sanctions was approved against North Korea for its latest nuclear test. The sanctions targeted North Korea’s economy and leadership. The country has carried out three nuclear tests since 2006.

On Thursday, Pyongyang threatened to launch “preemptive” nuclear strikes on the United States to defend itself in the event that Washington ignited a nuclear war.

North Korea also said a second Korean war would be “unavoidable” if the US and South Korea refused Pyongyang’s calls to cancel their large-scale joint military exercise scheduled to kick off next week.