North Korea vows 'nuclear' response to threats as US deploys B-1B bombers

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has firmly warned to respond to US threats with nuclear weapons amid Washington’s ramped-up military activities in the region, including joint exercises with Seoul and Tokyo.

North Korea's official news agency KCNA said on Saturday that Kim made the warning after he personally oversaw Pyongyang's latest launch of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which flew some 1,000 kilometers before falling in waters in the East Sea, also known as Sea of Japan.

Kim censured US’ joint exercises with Japan and South Korea as "hysteric aggression war drills" and was quoted by the KCNA as saying that if Washington continues to make threats against the North, Pyongyang “will resolutely react to nukes with nuclear weapons and to total confrontation with all-out confrontation.”

North Korea on Friday fired its newest intercontinental ballistic missile the Hwasong-17, dubbed the "monster missile" by analysts, with South Korea and Japan saying they suspect the long-range missile was designed to strike the mainland US.

KCNA said the launch of the "new-type ICBM" was successful, adding that the "test-fire clearly proved the reliability of the new major strategic weapon system.”

The launch showed that "the nuclear forces of the DPRK have secured another reliable and maximum capacity to contain any nuclear threat," the state news agency underlined, using the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Kim oversaw the test of Pyongyang's ICBM with his daughter in tow for the first time, with KCNA reporting that the presence of the country's first family provided "greater strength and courage in the dynamic advance for bolstering up the state nuclear strategic forces.”

The launch came a day after North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile as Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned that Pyongyang would take "fiercer" military action if the US further enhanced its "extended" military aid to the regional allies.

North Korea fires intercontinental missile capable of reaching US mainland

South Korea and Japan say they suspect that North Korea fired a long-range missile on Friday designed to strike the mainland US.

‘US B-1B bomber redeployed for joint drill’

The South Korean military said on Saturday that a US B-1B strategic bomber was redeployed to the Korean Peninsula for a joint air drill with South Korea after Pyongyang had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"South Korea and the US conducted a joint air drill today with the US Air Force's B-1B strategic bomber redeployed on the Korean peninsula," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

Some of the most advanced jets in the US and South Korean air forces, including the F-35 stealth fighter, also joined the drill, it said.

Pyongyang’s missile launches have come in response to Washington’s massive land, naval and aerial war games, along with South Korean and Japanese forces in the region – measures that North Korea regards as practice drills to invade the country.

Earlier this month, North Korea conducted a flurry of launches, including an ICBM. It also fired a short-range ballistic missile that crossed the de-facto maritime border between the two countries and landed near the South's territorial waters for the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

South Korean president claimed at the time that the launch was "effectively a territorial invasion."

Both launches were part of a November 2 barrage in which Pyongyang fired 23 missiles -- more than it launched during the entirety of 2017, the year of "fire and fury" when Kim traded barbs with then US president Donald Trump on Twitter and in state media before mending ties and holding face-to-face talks.

Washington and Seoul have markedly stepped up their muscle-flexing near the North's maritime border and airspace.

North Korea maintains that it will not tolerate US-led war games in the region, vowing to continue responding with its own drills.

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