North Korea calls the missile tests a legitimate defense measure

North Korea today defended its recent series of missile tests, portraying them as legitimate defense against what it described as US military threats.

Pyongyang has carried out six such launches in two weeks. It conducted the latest test of two ballistic missiles on Thursday.

On Tuesday it launched what South Korea’s national defense general staff said was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that passed over parts of the Japanese archipelago, prompting authorities to urge residents to seek shelter.

“The missile launch test by the DPRK (also the Democratic Republic of Korea, the official name of the country) is a measure of legitimate defense (…) to defend the security of the country and the region against the direct military threats of US, lasting more than half a century,” the civil aviation service said, according to North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, without specifying which exactly it was referring to.

The announcement was apparently a reaction to the fact that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), during its annual meeting in Montreal (Canada), yesterday condemned Pyongyang’s ballistic missile tests, which have multiplied this year, calling them a threat to civil aviation.

Denying that civilian aircraft were threatened, the reclusive country’s civil aviation agency called the resolution adopted by ICAO “a political provocation by the US and its proxies aimed at inflicting a blow on the national sovereignty of the DPRK”.

For their part, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have been ramping up joint military high schools in recent days. On Thursday, they conducted exercises with the participation of an American destroyer, which belongs to the strike group of the US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.

North Korea has conducted a record number of weapons tests this year. Leader Kim Jong-un says the country’s nuclear power status is “irreversible,” thus erasing any possibility of resuming denuclearization negotiations.

Western analysts say Pyongyang is taking advantage of the impasse at the United Nations to carry out increasingly provocative weapons tests.

For months, South Korean and US officials have warned that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct a new nuclear weapon test, its seventh in a row, possibly in the interim between China’s Communist Party congress (October 16) and midterms. US election (November 8).

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.