Pyongyang, July 10 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of National Defence of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Monday issued the following press statement:

Recently, the U.S. Defense Department officially announced its scheme to put strategic nuclear submarine into the operational waters of the Korean peninsula.

The deployment of the U.S. strategic nuclear submarine carrying nuclear warheads in the Korean peninsula means that the U.S. strategic nuclear weapons will appear in the peninsula for the first time since 1981.

This is a very dangerous situation as it will bring the regional military tension to a more critical state and may incite the worst crisis of nuclear conflict in practice.

The present situation clearly proves that the situation of the Korean peninsula is coming closer to the threshold of nuclear conflict due to the U.S. provocative military action.

The U.S. attempt to introduce strategic nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula is the most undisguised nuclear blackmail against the DPRK and its neighboring countries and a grave threat and challenge to the regional and global peace and security.

All the facts show most clearly who commits provocation and who exercises self-restraint, and who threatens and who is threatened on the Korean peninsula.

It is necessary to make it clear once again who is to blame for the situation of military clash on the Korean peninsula that is approaching the worst crisis at present.

Whether the extreme situation, desired by nobody, is created or not on the Korean peninsula depends on the future action of the U.S., and if any sudden situation happens in the future, the U.S. will be held totally accountable for it.

The DPRK should show in the clearest way how it will take counteraction, in order to prevent the U.S. from doing such reckless acts with ease.

The demonstrative actions like the deployment of strategic assets by the U.S. will never lead to the promotion of security but rather become a disaster of bringing more painful and worrying security crisis they themselves do not want.

It is impossible to overlook the fact that the U.S. is getting more frantic in its military espionage against the sovereignty of the DPRK.

Recently the U.S. has conducted hostile espionage activities in the Korean peninsula and its vicinity at an unprecedented level by intensively mobilizing various air reconnaissance means deployed in the Asia-Pacific operational theatre.

This month alone, RC-135, U-2S and RQ-4B, strategic reconnaissance planes and reconnaissance drone belonging to the U.S. Air Force, flew over the East and West seas of Korea in turn for eight straight days from July 2 to 9 to conduct provocative aerial espionage on the DPRK's strategic interior.

In particular, a strategic reconnaissance plane of the U.S. Air Force illegally intruded into the inviolable airspace of the DPRK over its East Sea tens of kilometers several times.

This year the U.S. sent various kinds of air reconnaissance means of its air force and navy, including strategic and electronic reconnaissance planes, into the airspace above the East and West seas of Korea and the Military Demarcation Line one after another. And it has got hell-bent on provocative information-gathering movement by letting high altitude strategic reconnaissance planes and drones fly north near the Military Demarcation Line.

Quite obvious is the intention of the U.S. which is concentrating its air reconnaissance assets on the Korean peninsula, timed to coincide with the fact that it has staged joint air drills with B-52H nuclear strategic bomber involved one after another and calls for entry into south Korea of its strategic nuclear submarine carrying nuclear weapons.

The U.S. has further intensified espionage activities beyond the wartime level by massively introducing air reconnaissance assets into the Korean peninsula where there exist a constant possibility of military conflict and the danger of a nuclear war is growing more serious. It is a clear threat to the sovereignty of the DPRK and a grave provocation plunging the regional situation into an irretrievable phase.

We are analyzing the true intention of the U.S. ostentatiously perpetrating such reckless military action threatening the DPRK, while watching every provocative move.

We are now maintaining our utmost patience and self-control, but everything has its limit. The present is the time when the U.S. is near the critical point to be concerned.

The U.S. needs to recall one again the tragic fate of its spy plane EC-121 in 1969 and its reconnaissance helicopter which intruded into the area of our side along the Military Demarcation Line in 1994 and what dangerous situation its RC-135 was placed in March 2003.

It is as clear as noonday what danger will be entailed by the fact that the enemy side's spy planes are coming nearer to the territorial sky of its belligerent party in the Korean peninsula where huge armed forces and nuclear weapons are standing in confrontation with each other.

The U.S. will surely have to pay a dear price for its provocative air espionage, frantically staged even invading the opposite side's air space without previous notice.

There is no guarantee that such shocking accident as downing of the U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen in the East Sea of Korea.

The U.S. daily-escalating serious military activity for various purposes and the regional security environment getting more overheated evidently foretells a possible conflict.

All the provocative moves of the U.S. should be stopped at once.

We send a serious warning to all the U.S. dangerous and provocative military actions getting evermore undisguised. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche112.7.10.)