N Korea slams US anti-missile test
North Korea has accused the United States of provoking war by carrying out an anti-missile test over the Pacific and holding military drills with South Korean forces on the divided peninsula.
The US military shot down a dummy warhead over the Pacific on Friday in what it called a “huge step” in the development of an anti-missile shield activated in July to guard against missiles test-fired by North Korea.
The North’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said the joint exercise was the most provocative yet and, given its scale and content, a virtual declaration of war against the communist state.
The committee’s statement on Saturday, carried by the official KCNA news agency, read: “On the occasion of the Ulchi Focus Lens joint military drills, the United States even conducted a missile test aimed at attacking us from the South and the US homeland and intercepting our missiles.”
Joint exercise
On Friday, US and South Korean troops ended the 12-day exercise designed to test command structures and communications.
Ulchi Focus Lens has been staged annually without incident since 1975, but the North usually denounces the drills as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war.
This year’s exercise took place with tensions high on the peninsula after North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles on July 5 and after reports in August that it might be preparing to test a nuclear weapon.
Pyongyang said last year that it now possessed nuclear arms, which it described as a self-defence deterrent. There has been no outside confirmation of this development.
“The United States are wielding the bat of power and trying to get someone to surrender to them … it will cement the determination of our armed force and people to build up self-defence deterrent,” Saturday’s statement said.