PEDAL TO THE METAL

N. Korea: We’re Speeding Up Our Nuclear Development

“Bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum.”

North Korea will not only continue its nuclear-weapons tests, but now intends to speed them up “to the maximum pace,” Pyongyang declared in a statement Monday via its KCNA state-run news agency. “Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called ‘maximum pressure and engagement,’ the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence,” a spokesman for the Hermit Kingdom’s foreign ministry said in the statement. He added that North Korea’s “measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership.” U.S. President Donald Trump has said that a “major conflict” with North Korea may erupt over the country’s ballistic-missile and nuclear programs. In recent weeks, the U.S. has directed a nuclear submarine and sent an aircraft carrier group to waters near the Korean Peninsula in a show of force.