Kim Jong-un threatens 'to wipe out Americans', boasts of nuclear arsenal on Korean War anniversary

North Korean leaders threatened the US that no Americans will survive if there is another round of war in the Korean peninsula as the country marked the 62<sup>nd anniversary of the armistice agreement, which ended the Korean War.

The armistice day, touted as North's victory against South Korea and the US forces, is marked on 27 July every year as it brought an end to the three-year war in 1953. Since it was not a peace treaty, the two Koreas technically remain at war.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said, according to an official statement released by state television: "Gone forever is the era when the United States blackmailed us with nukes; now the United States is no longer a source of threat and fear for us and we are the very source of fear for it."

The 30-something leader paid respects to his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim-Il-sung – both former leaders – at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang where their embalmed bodies lie in state.

The US forces, supported by UN allies, backed the South Korean troops in the war, while the soldiers of China and USSR fought alongside North Korean.

Other North authorities have also used the occasion to step up the anti-US rhetoric condemning the "imperialist" US forces.

In another ceremony, the country's top army general Pak Yong Sik, who is suspected to have taken over as the reclusive state's defence minister, said: "It is more than 60 years since the ceasefire on [the] land, but peace has not yet settled on it. The past Korean War brought about the beginning of the downhill turn for the US, but the second Korean War will bring the final ruin to US imperialism."