North Korea threatens U.S. and S. Korea ships

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea threatened military strikes on U.S. and South Korean ships Wednesday and renounced a 1953 truce halting the Korean War fighting — an escalation of tensions in the wake of Pyongyang's nuclear test.

The threats, which follow Seoul's decision to join more than 90 nations in stopping and inspecting ships suspected of transporting banned weapons, raised the prospect of a naval clash off Korea's west coast.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton responded by saying North Korea faces consequences for its nuclear and missile tests and denouncing its "provocative and belligerent" threats. She also underscored the firmness of the U.S. treaty commitment to defend South Korea and Japan, which are in easy range of North Korean missiles.

The U.N. Security Council was debating how to punish the North for its nuclear test Monday, what President Barack Obama called a "blatant violation" of international law.

Ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — as well as Japan and South Korea were working on a new resolution.

South Korea, still divided from the North by a heavily fortified border, had responded to the nuclear test by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led movement to stop ships from transporting banned nuclear goods.

Pyongyang lashed out at both the U.S. and South Korea, calling Seoul's move to join the PSI tantamount to a declaration of war and a violation of the truce keeping the peace between the two Koreas.

"Full participation in the PSI by a side on the Korean Peninsula where the state of military confrontation is growing acute and there is constant danger of military conflict itself means igniting a war," North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried on state media.

The regime warned that it would "deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow" to anyone trying to inspect its vessels.

North Korea's army said it would be "illogical" to honor the 1953 armistice between the two Koreas, given the violations by the U.S. and South Korea, and said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the maritime border.

The Korean People's Army said in a statement that North Korea has "tremendous military muscle" and was "able to conquer any targets in its vicinity at one stroke."

Clinton said North Korea has made a choice to violate U.N. Security Council resolutions, ignore international warnings and abrogate commitments made during six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.

"There are consequences to such actions," she said, referring to discussions in the United Nations about punishing North Korea.