SEOUL – North Korea said on Nov 2 it has no choice but to continue with efforts to build up capabilities for self-defence and accused the United States and South Korea of pushing the Korean peninsula into war scenarios.
“The DPRK will further intensify its practical efforts to deter the military threat of the hostile forces and maintain the balance of forces in the region,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said on state news agency KCNA, referring to the North by its official name.
The spokesperson blamed Washington and Seoul for staging “various sorts of war plots more than 20 times” in 2024, leaving no option for Pyongyang but to thoroughly deter the danger of outbreak of a nuclear war.
In a separate statement, Ms Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, condemned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ recent criticism of the nation’s firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile, and said weapons testing is for “self-defence”.
North Korea on Oct 31 flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) dubbed Hwasong-19.
The ICBM launch came shortly after the North started dispatching soldiers to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which drew swift condemnation from Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the UN chief.
The launch flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan that tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.
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On Nov 1, the South Korean and US air forces conducted their first-ever joint live-fire attack drills that involved the Global Hawk and the Reaper drones, dropping Global Positioning System-guided munitions in simulated strikes against enemy targets, South Korea’s air force said. REUTERS