| Translate This News In |
|---|
On Saturday, North Korea defended its recent barrage of missile tests, arguing that they were a necessary response to what it claimed were military threats from the US.
In less than two weeks, the reclusive communist nation has launched six missiles in violation of sanctions, with Thursday’s launch of two ballistic missiles marking the most recent.
People in the impacted areas below were urged to seek cover after the North launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan on Tuesday.
According to state-run news agency KCNA, North Korea’s civil aviation agency stated without naming which test launch: “The missile test launch by the DPRK is a regular and planned self-defensive step for defending the country’s security and the regional peace from the US direct military threats that have endured for more than half a century.”
Following the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Friday condemnation of North Korea’s recent missile launches and designation of them as a threat to civil aviation, which was made at its annual assembly in Montreal, the government agency released the statement.
The DPRK, as North Korea’s official name is abbreviated, views this ICAO resolution as “a political provocation of the US and its vassal forces designed to encroach upon the sovereignty of the DPRK.”
A US Navy destroyer from the strike group of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier participated in further drills on Thursday as Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington increased their frequency of joint military exercises in recent weeks.
The launches are a part of a record year of nuclear and missile tests by isolated North Korea, whose ruler Kim Jong Un has declared his country to be a “irreversible” nuclear power, thereby terminating the possibility of denuclearization negotiations.
Analysts claim Pyongyang has taken advantage of the deadlock at the UN to conduct ever-more aggressive nuclear tests.
Pyongyang will likely conduct another nuclear test after China’s Party Congress on October 16, according to officials in Seoul and Washington who have been issuing warnings for months.
