North Korea is canceling a hotline and a nonaggression pact with South Korea and reiterating past threats in anger over a U.N. Security Council vote to impose more sanctions on the North for its third nuclear test.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a move that sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.
The vote Thursday by the U.N.'s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea's closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests - and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.
The new sanctions are aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to finance and obtain material for its weapons programs.
The statement the North issued Friday (Korea Standard Time) comes after the council leveled tough, new sanctions targeting the North's economy and leadership. North Korea already has threatened of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.
North Korea says it will retaliate with "crushing strikes" if enemies intrude into its territory. It also says it is voiding past nuclear disarmament statements between North and South Korea.
It previously said it was canceling a hotline with the United States and the armistice that closed the Korean War in 1953.
Earlier Thursday, an unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "pre-emptive nuclear strikes on the headquarters of the aggressors" because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.
Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea. But it has been coming regularly in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills.
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