Angry about [checks notes] the US Navy deployment of a ballistic missile submarine in a South Korean port, North Korean military leaders said the stationing of nuclear weapons in the South would justify a preemptive nuclear strike, Reuters reports.
Defense minister Kang Sun Nam didn’t refer specifically to the recent arrival of the Ohio-class US nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky in the Southern city of Busan, the first nuclear-armed sub to visit South Korea since the 1980s, but cited potential deployment of nuclear-armed carriers, cruisers or subs. “The ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law,” he said in a statement.