North Korea: 'We Will First Target And Dissolve' The United States

(CNN) — North Korea has entered a “state of war” with neighboring South Korea, according to a report Saturday from the state-run Korean Central News Agency that included a threat to “dissolve” the U.S. mainland. “Any issues regarding North and South will be treated in accordance to the state of war,” North Korea’s government said in a special statement carried by KCNA. “… The condition, which was neither war nor peace, has ended.”

North Korea and South Korea technically remain at war since their conflict between 1950 and 1953 ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty. On March 11, the North Korean army declared the armistice agreement invalid. This report represented Pyongyang’s latest salvo aimed at South Korea and its ally the United States. Tensions in the area have been ratcheting up for months, with North Korea remaining defiant and, in some opinions, belligerent in the face of international efforts to halt its nuclear program. Saturday’s report included a direct threat to the United States, while also asserting Pyongyang “will not limit (itself) to limited warfare but to all-out war and nuclear war.”