Seoul: North Korea on Monday threatened a 'physical response' to a move by the United States and South Korea to deploy an advanced missile defence system to the Korean peninsula.
The warning follows a statement by Seoul and Washington to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system solely to counter the threat from Pyongyang.
However, it is not yet clear when the system would be deployed, where it would be sited and who would have final control.
The North regularly makes such threats against the South and the US.
According to the Associated Press, South Korea’s deputy defense minister, Yoo Jeh Seung, told a nationally televised news conference Friday that Seoul and Washington would quickly deploy the system because North Korea’s growing weapons capabilities pose a big threat to the region.
"The DPRK will take a physical counter-action to thoroughly control THAAD... from the moment its location and place have been confirmed in South Korea," the artillery bureau of the North's military said in a statement, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
North Korea's military, which has "sufficient latest offensive strike means", will take "more merciless and powerful successive corresponding measures against the US keen to ignite a war by deploying THAAD", it said.
The THAAD system is also opposed by Beijing and Moscow, who see it as the US hardening its military presence in the region.
