North Korea counts Japan among its most-hated enemies due to the period of Japanese rule over the peninsula during the first half of the 20th century.
The country is frequently held up as the cause of all North Korea’s problems, along with the United States of America and South Korea.
Despot Kim Jong-un has this year ordered the firing of two missiles directly over Japan, with citizens on the ground woken to emergency alerts and sirens.
These launches provoked panic in Japan and worldwide condemnation but it appears North Korea is now preparing to go one step further and launch a direct attack.
A news article published in a Pyongyang-based newspaper, which acts as a mouthpiece for Kim’s one-party government, has issued a stark warning to Tokyo.
The propaganda rag said Japan would “pay for its crimes” in the past, when Japan introduced a Government-General to rule over Korea.
The article said: “The Government-General in Korea oversaw economic exploitation and relied on military force.
“It was also a suppression organisation to stamp out the national education and national culture of Korea.
“The Government-General in Korea during the first days of its office set up the military police system in a bid to quench the Korean nation’s anti-Japanese awareness and to maintain colonial rule and then enforced hideous medieval horror-ridden military rule.”
North Korea frequently threatens to reduce Japan to “debris” but fears of an all-out attack have increased during 2017 as Kim accelerates his missile programme.
And this latest threat will once again set alarms bells ringing in Tokyo, as well as in Washington and Seoul.
The article, entitled ‘Korean People will Certainly Force Japan to Pay for its Crimes’, expressed fury at the lack of apology from Tokyo.
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It concludes: “Far from frankly admitting and repenting of their past crimes, the Japanese reactionaries are still denying the stark historical facts and justifying them in a bid to evade the responsibility.
“The Korean people will certainly wrest all prices of the crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists and those committed by the Japanese reactionaries.”