Pyongyang, July 20 (KCNA) -- Kang Sun Nam, minister of National Defence of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), issued the following press statement on July 20:

In defiance of the repeated warning by the DPRK and serious concern of the international community, the U.S. and the group of traitors of the "Republic of Korea" (ROK) held a meeting of the "nuclear consultative group" on July 18 to discuss the plan for using nuclear weapons against the DPRK.

In particular, the hostile forces posed the most undisguised and direct nuclear threat to the DPRK by bringing an Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarine to the Pusan Port operation base, which means strategic nuclear weapons have been deployed on the Korean peninsula for the first time after 40 odd years.

This shows that the U.S. scenario for a nuclear attack upon the DPRK and its implementation have entered the most critical stage of visualization and systemization and the phase of a military clash on the Korean peninsula has surfaced as a dangerous reality beyond all sorts of imagination and presumption.

Among the nuclear-armed nations of the world, the U.S. is the only country which openly made it its policy to use its nuclear weapons against a specific country. No one will be able to deny the gravity and dangerousness of the security environment facing the DPRK in the light of that fact alone.

The U.S. and the traitors of the "ROK" are widely advertising the deployment of gigantic strategic nuclear weaponry of the U.S.

We correctly know why such weapons have found themselves on the Korean peninsula and where they came from.

As the U.S. and the "ROK" gangsters have gone beyond the "red line" in their military hysteria, now is the time for the DPRK to make clear once again its corresponding action choice and response direction.

The military security situation in the area of the Korean peninsula, which has undergone a fundamental change due to the reckless military moves of the U.S. and its followers, more clearly indicates what mission the nuclear weapons of the DPRK should carry out.

Through this press statement, I remind the U.S. military of the fact that the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy.

The DPRK's doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons allows the execution of necessary action procedures in case a nuclear attack is launched against it or it is judged that the use of nuclear weapons against it is imminent.

The U.S. military side should realize that its nuclear assets have entered extremely dangerous waters.

I seriously warn once again the U.S. and the "ROK" military gangsters' group daringly touting the "end of regime" in our country.

To the U.S. and the "ROK", any use of their military muscle against the DPRK will be their most miserable choice by which they will have no room to think of their existence again.

The armed forces of the DPRK will responsibly carry out their important mission for defending the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests and preventing a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region by thoroughly deterring and repelling the crazy maneuvers of the U.S. and its stooges to use nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.