N.Korea warns that ports, military bases in S. Korea 'not safe' amid visit by US submarine

ANKARA

North Korea has warned that Seoul's ports and military bases are "not safe" after a US submarine docked in South Korea, state media reported on Wednesday.

Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, criticized the arrival of the nuclear-powered USS Vermont submarine to South Korea.

"The US strategic assets will never find their resting place in the region of the Korean Peninsula. We will continue to inform that all the ports and military bases of the ROK (Republic of Korea) are not safe places," she said in statement.

Kim added that the US marines' arrival at Busan Port "can never be an object of fear" for North Korea.

The USS Vermont docked at the southeastern naval base in Busan to "replenish supplies and provide rest" for crew members.

In its first port call in South Korea, the 7,800-ton nuclear-powered attack submarine had conducted operations in the region before arriving at Busan.

"The US is by no means a 'pronoun of security'," Kim stressed.

Notably, the warning from Pyongyang came a few days after South Korea's former President Moon Jae-in warned that the Korean Peninsula was in the "most dangerous state" since the inter-Korean War of the 1950s, and urged dialogue between the divided Koreas.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement, the North Korea Foreign Ministry criticized the US, Australia, India and Japan, calling their so-called Quad alliance a "political and diplomatic tool serving the implementation of the US strategy for uni-polar domination."

"Today, Quad, the end product of the US Cold War mentality and policy of inter-camp confrontation, has become a dangerous factor that deepens mistrust and antagonism between countries in the Asia-Pacific region and provokes international instability," said the ministry.

It warned that Pyongyang would never tolerate any hostile acts of encroaching upon its national sovereign rights, security and interests.

On Saturday, US President Joe Biden hosted a gathering of Quad leaders, who together condemned North Korea's ballistic missile launches and its continued pursuit of nuclear arms.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid