North Korea yesterday threatened a further military build-up in response to US President Joe Biden’s condemnation of missile launches by Pyongyang on Thursday.
Pyongyang launched two weapons from its east coast into the sea.
Following the launch, Biden labeled the test a violation of UN resolutions and advised the isolated state against ramping up military testing, warning that “there will be responses if they choose to escalate.”
Ri Pyong-chol, a leading official in North Korea’s missile program who supervised the test, said that Biden’s comments had revealed his “deep-seated hostility” to the regime.
“Such remarks from the US president are an undisguised encroachment on our state’s right to self-defense and provocation to it,” Ri said in a statement published by the Korean Central News Agency.
Ri said that Pyongyang was expressing its “deep apprehension over the US chief executive faulting the regular testfire, [an] exercise of our state’s right to self-defense, as the violation of UN ‘resolutions.’”
“If the US continues with its thoughtless remarks without thinking of the consequences, it may be faced with something that is not good,” he said, adding that North Korea was prepared to “continue to increase our most thoroughgoing and overwhelming military power.”
The comments came as Washington is in the final stages of a policy review on North Korea.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said that Ri’s remarks were “essentially a threat that North Korea will respond to the US policy review with more tests.”
“Pyongyang is implementing a premeditated strategy of advancing military capabilities and raising tensions,” Easley said.
North Korea has reported that the Thursday launch was a test of a new “tactical guided projectile” with a solid-fuel engine.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga called the two weapons ballistic missiles, which Pyongyang is banned from developing under UN Security Council resolutions.
A UN sanctions committee focused on nuclear-armed North Korea has asked its experts to investigate the test and European members of the Security Council have requested an urgent meeting to discuss North Korea.
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