New N. Korea Threats: Retaliatory Action Will Come 'Without Notice'

North Korea has made new threats against South Korea and its foreign allies after portraits of North Korea's founder Kim Il-Sung, his son Kim Jong-Il and grandson and current leader Kim Jong-un were all burned at a demonstration yesterday.

The army's supreme command declared in a communiqué broadcast by the state news agency that: "Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now" and demanded an apology for anti-North Korean protests on Monday in South Korea.

The protests took place on what they call "The Day of the Sun," the 101st anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung a day which North Korea commemorated by announcing it would carry out a missile test, wrote the Bangkok Post.

"The military demonstration of the DPRK's revolutionary armed forces," said the North Korean army, "will be powerful sledge-hammer blows at all hostile forces hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK." It added that the burning of the portraits was a "thrice-cursed criminal act."

Reuters reported that the North Koreans also rejected what it called "cunning" U.S. overtures toward peace talks, which it considers "humiliating." The United States have offered the prospect of the talks if North Korea gives up its nuclear ambitions. North Korea has carried out three nuclear tests, but is not believed to have the weapons capacity or the ability to deliver a strike. The boisterous country, which claims it does, calls nuclear weapons its "treasured sword" and has vowed never to give them up. Much of its conventional weaponry dates back to the Soviet era.

South Korea said it would be on guard against any missile launch and that an offer of talks made last week by President Park Geun-hye would still be on the table even after it was turned down last week by its northern neighbor.

Recent annual military exercises between the U.S. and South Korean have also garnered North Korea's ire. After the U.S. dispatched B52 and B2 stealth bombers from its bases to take part in the exercises, North Korea described them as a hostile act. The U.S. stations 28,000 troops in South Korea.

The threat came just as Secretary of State John Kerry was finishing up his tour of China, South Korea and Japan, during which he stressed the need for unified action by the three countries in the face of North Korea's bellicosity.