North Korea’s defense minister on Saturday warned of more “offensive action,” after Washington and Seoul criticized Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile launch.
North Korea’s missile launch on Friday came just over a week after US President Donald Trump — on a tour of the region — expressed interest in meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Pyongyang did not respond to the offer.
Photo: Reuters
North Korean Minister of National Defense No Kwang-chol said Washington “has become brazen in its military moves to threaten the security” of the North, and that it was “intentionally escalating the political and military tension in the region.”
“We will show more offensive action against the enemies’ threat,” he said, according to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency.
Earlier in the week, before Friday’s launch, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his South Korean counterpart visited the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) where they “reaffirmed the strong combined defence posture and close cooperation” between their countries.
On Wednesday, the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington arrived in the South Korean port city of Busan for logistics support and crew rest, according to Seoul’s navy — an act No said was “further escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
No also said Hegseth’s DMZ visit was meant to “fan up war hysterics.”
The US Indo-Pacific Command on Friday said that North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch “highlights the destabilizing impact” of Pyongyang’s actions, adding that the US was “consulting closely with our allies and partners.”
South Korea’s military had strongly condemned Pyongyang’s missile launch.
Seoul’s military “urges North Korea to immediately cease all actions that heighten tensions between the two Koreas,” it said in a statement.
Trump last week also announced that he had approved South Korea’s plan to build a nuclear-powered submarine.
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