North Korea threatened Friday to take "physical countermeasures" against South Korea over sanctions passed against Pyongyang by the UN Security Council this week. "If the South Korean puppet regime of traitors directly participates in the so-called UN sanctions, strong physical countermeasures would be taken," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said. The reunification committee said in a statement carried on the official Korean Central News Agency that sanctions were equivalent to "war and a declaration of war against us" and any aggression would be met with a war of unification. As long as the South pursues a hostile policy towards North Korea, it would not hold any dialogue with it, said the committee, which is one of the avenues through which the North and South hold talks. Pyongyang has issued daily statements since the sanctions were passed to punish it for a successful December 12 launch of a long-range rocket. Hours after the vote, it vowed to expand its nuclear arsenal, and on Thursday, it said it plans a third nuclear test and further rocket launches that "will target our sworn enemy, the United States." The United States declared it was "fully prepared" to deal with any kind of provocation.
