North Korea Vows ‘High-Profile’ Retaliation Over Sanctions

North Korea has continued its war rhetoric - over the U.S.-backed U.N. sanctions on the country - stating that it will take substantial and high-profile important state measures to retaliate against the sanctions, the state media reported Sunday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a meeting with top security and foreign affairs officials asked them to assert the situation as to what actions can be taken against the U.S. in retaliation against the sanctions.

“At the consultative meeting, Kim Jong Un expressed the firm resolution to take substantial and high-profile important state measures in view of the prevailing situation,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “He advanced specific tasks to the officials concerned.”

North Korea did not clarify the measures that will be taken in the statement issued Sunday, but with a Saturday dateline, indicating the meeting to have taken place Saturday.

However, a barrage of threats was issued by the North, after the U.N. Security Council resolution unanimously tightened the sanctions slapped on the reclusive nation following their recent nuclear tests.

The resolution was backed by its biggest ally China and was adopted in response to its long-range rocket launch in December.

Pyongyang, furious over the sanctions had vowed to conduct a third nuclear test and threatened to launch more missiles targeting the U.S.

"I am satisfied with the statement stressing that settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words as it regards jungle law as the rule of its survival. This fully reflects the KPA's will to annihilate the enemies. Words do never work on the U.S. imperialists. I am eager to shower a fire on them at once," said Kim Yong Jin, an officer of the Korean People's Army, KCNA reported.

Pyongyang had also threatened South Korea with war if it took part in the sanctions regime.

Describing the resolution as fabricated, the North had said the move represents “the height of the hostile policy toward the DPRK.”

Pyongyang has rejected all resolutions against so far, claiming their nuclear program is for peaceful scientific purpose and it is their sovereign right to conduct nuclear tests and missile launches.

Meanwhile, satellite images showed that North Korea is serious over the third nuclear test and the country is ready to conduct the test in its Punggye-ri site, where it had conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

An Associated Press report citing the analysis on the satellite image, provided by 38 North, the website of U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said: “Over the past month roads have been kept clear of snow and that North Koreans may have been sealing the tunnel into a mountainside where a nuclear device would be detonated.”

An earlier picture of the site had showed heaps of material that could be used for sealing the tunnel, while in the latest picture the heaps have “shrank” indicating that the sealing of the tunnel is in progress, the analysis stated.