Pyongyang: DPRK's missile testing legitimate for countering US threats
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With over 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, the DPRK takes Washington's threats seriously.
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A man is photographed watching a TV screen as footage of a North Korean missile test plays at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on October 4, 2022. (AFP)
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) defended Saturday its latest missile tests as a legitimate counter to US military threats in the region.
Slicing through US sanctions, Pyongyang launched six rockets over the last two weeks or less, with the latest launch on Thursday consisting of two ballistic missiles. On Tuesday, an intermediate-range ballistic missile flew over Japan.
According to Pyongyang's civil aviation agency to KCNA, "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 lasted for more than half a century." The agency did not specify which launch.
On Friday, the International Civil Aviation Organization condemned Pyongyang's missile tests, calling them a danger to civil aviation. On the other hand, the Korean agency pointed to the resolution as "a political provocation of the US and its vassal forces aimed to infringe upon the sovereignty of the DPRK."
Washington has approximately 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, escalating the tension in the heated region.
Military drills
Thursday afternoon witnessed a dozen DPRK jets conducting a firing drill after the DPRK’s launch of two short-range ballistic missiles earlier in the day, according to South Korea’s military source to NK News.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that eight North Korean fighter jets and four bombers flew in formation north of the inter-Korean air border for about an hour, seemingly carrying out air-to-surface firing exercises, adding that some of the DPRK warplanes violated South Korea’s “special reconnaissance line", which purposes to the north of an agreed inter-Korean airspace buffer zone outlined in the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on both sides of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) dividing the Koreas.
The South Korean military sent what it labeled as an “overwhelming” response with 30 aircraft that included F-15K fighter jets, but there were no specifications regarding their proximity and location to the North Korean formation.
On Friday, Washington imposed sanctions on entities and individuals in Asia accused of helping Pyongyang break through the UN sanctions.
In the week that passed, South Korea, Japan and the US joined hands in military drills, carrying out more exercises Thursday involving a US Navy destroyer from the USS Ronald Reagan air craft carrier's strike group.
KCNA remarked on Saturday that the drills are "extremely provocative and threatening."
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