North Korea says 1.4 mn youth ready to join army over ‘tense situation to the brink of war’

North Korean state media said on Wednesday around 1.4 million young people had applied to join or return to the army this week, accusing Seoul of a provocative drone incursion that had brought the “tense situation to the brink of war”.

The young people, including students and youth league officials who had signed petitions to join the army, were determined to fight in a “sacred war of destroying the enemy with the arms of the revolution,” the KCNA report said.

Photographs published by KCNA showed what it said were young people signing petitions at an undisclosed location.

North Korea’s claim of having more than one million young people volunteering to enlist in the country’s Korean People’s Army in just two days comes at a time when tensions on the Korean peninsula are running high.

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North Korea has made similar claims in the past when there have been heightened tensions in the region.

Last year, state media reported on 800,000 of its citizens volunteering to join the North’s military to fight against the United States.

In 2017, nearly 3.5 million workers, party members and soldiers volunteered to join or rejoin its army, the reclusive state’s state media said at that time.

It is very difficult to verify the North’s claims.

According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), North Korea has 1.28 million active soldiers and about 600,000 reservists.

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The IISS also said it had 5.7 million Worker/Peasant Red Guard reservists with many units unarmed.

In the latest sign of the growing tensions, North Korea blew up sections of inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas on Tuesday, prompting South Korea’s military to fire warning shots.

Pyongyang had said last week it would cut off the inter-Korean roads and railways entirely and further fortify the areas on its side of the border as part of its push for a “two-state” system, scrapping its longstanding goal of unification.

The two Koreas are still technically at war after their 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

North Korea has also accused Seoul of sending drones over its capital and the two Koreas have clashed over balloons of trash floated since May from North Korea. Pyongyang has said the launches are a response to balloons sent by anti-regime activists in the South.South Korea’s government has declined to say whether its military or civilians had flown the alleged drones over Pyongyang.

“If a war breaks out, the ROK will be wiped off the map. As it wants a war, we are willing to put an end to its existence,” the KCNA report said, referring to the South’s official name the Republic of Korea.

South Korea’s defence ministry warned on Sunday “if North Korea inflicts harm on the safety of our people, that day will be the end of the North Korean regime,” Yonhap news agency reported.