PYONGYANG, August 20. /ITAR-TASS/. If an armed conflict starts on the Korean Peninsula, “the American troops in South Korea will be the main target” for North Korean (DPRK) strikes, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Wednesday.

According KCNA, the North Korean “deterrence for self-defense is fully ready to react to US nuclear blackmail with merciless nuclear attack and to a war of aggression with an all-out just war.”

According to KCNA, if a conflict starts, the DPRK Korean People’s Army (KPA) “is ready to strike military bases in the US mainland, the citadel of aggression, and Hawaii, Guam and other operational theatres in the Pacific, US military bases in south Korea and protect the dignity and sovereignty of the country and the nation, should the US recklessly start a war with huge strategic forces involved.”

The agency says that the KPA has recently “conducted drills for firing rockets at the mock bases of US troops in south Korea, fully displaying the combat capabilities of the firepower units and the performance of tactical rockets and once again powerfully demonstrating its military muscle.” KCNA says “it is crystal clear that the US forces in South Korea will be the primary targets of the KPA and face its punishment in case a war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula.”

“The US is sadly mistaken if it thinks that it can protect its troops and the South Korean puppet army with its “nuclear umbrella” in South Korea, its colony, at a time when it is busy taking steps to defend its mainland from the high-performance nuclear and missile strikes of the KPA,” KCNA says.