UNITED NATIONS -- North Korea's foreign minister condemned the United States on Friday for flying supersonic bombers over South Korea earlier this week and vowed his country will strengthen its nuclear capabilities in defiance of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.
In a speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Ri Yong Ho said the Korean Peninsula "has now been turned into the world's most dangerous hot spot, which can even ignite the outbreak of a nuclear war." He blamed the United States and "its hostile policy" against North Korea.
Ri claimed that B-1B bombers the U.S. military flew over South Korea earlier this week crossed the demarcation line separating the two Koreas. The U.S. military has said at least one of two supersonic bombers that it flew over South Korea approached the border with North Korea, an unusual occurrence in the world's most heavily fortified border.
Cmdr. Dave Benham, U.S. Pacific Command spokesman, said Friday that the aircraft remained in South Korean airspace and "did not at any time cross the military demarcation line between North and South Korea."
The U.S. flyover was the second in as many weeks and came two weeks after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test.
Ri said "the United States will have to face tremendous consequences beyond imagination."
He said the North "will continue to take measures to strengthen its national nuclear armed forces in both quantity and quality in order to defend the dignity and right to existence and safeguard genuine peace vis-a-vis the increased nuclear war threat of the United States."
North Korea's recent nuclear test, along with recent ballistic missile launches, have deepened concerns that it is moving closer toward obtaining the ability to put nuclear warheads on a variety of its ballistic missiles.
Speaking at a meeting with Southeast Asian foreign ministers Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that every country has a responsibility to vigorously enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions to ensure North Korea "pays a price for its dangerous actions."
Kerry also vowed that the United States would defend its own citizens against the North Korean threat and honor its security commitments to its allies.
Ri spoke days after the U.S., Japan and South Korea met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly gathering to discuss ways to force North Korea to comply with the U.N. resolutions, which prohibit Pyongyang from conducting nuclear and missile tests.
The three countries discussed work in the Security Council to tighten the sanctions and the possibility of taking measures of their own to restrict revenue sources for the North's missile and nuclear programs.
Ri dismissed the Security Council resolutions as unfair.
North Korea "had no other choice but to go nuclear inevitably after it has done everything possible to defend the national security from the constant nuclear threats from the United States," he said.
West African help
Separately, at a high-level conference Friday on the sidelines of the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting, the U.N. humanitarian office said international donors pledged more than $160 million for lifesaving support for millions of people in west Africa whose lives have been thrown into turmoil by the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram.
U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called the upheaval in the Lake Chad Basin, which straddles Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger "one of the worst crises in today's world" and said it must not become a "forgotten crisis."
More than 9 million people across the basin urgently need humanitarian aid, he said, and 6.3 million aren't getting enough to eat.
The U.N. humanitarian office said donors pledged $163 million of the $542 million needed this year. Major donors included Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Assistant Secretary-General Toby Lanzer, the humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, said "the Lake Chad Basin crisis is one of the most acute emergencies in the world."
"The situation of many affected communities has deteriorated beyond alarming levels," he said. "If we do not act fast, and do more, especially in areas that were previously inaccessible, thousands of people will die."
As a result of Boko Haram's attacks, Eliasson said, civilians have been killed, homes torched, possessions looted and livelihoods destroyed.
"Tens of thousands of people in northeastern Nigeria are living in famine conditions," he said.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told the meeting that the United States has provided more that $318 million in humanitarian aid to the region since 2015 and she announced an additional $41 million in assistance.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee and Edith M. Lederer of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/24/2016