Biden admin 'obviously took its first step wrong' on missile test: North Korea slams US

North Korea on March 27 said that US President Joe Biden’s administration had taken a wrong first step and revealed “deep-seated hostility” by criticising its recent missile test. North Korea has claimed that the missiles it launched on Thursday were a “newly developed new type of tactical guided projectile”. Biden, on the other hand, has said that Pyongyang’s test violated the UN Security Council resolutions, however, he also added that he remained open to diplomacy with North Korea. 

In response to Biden’s remarks, Ri Pyong Chol, secretary of the North's ruling Workers Party's Central Committee, said that North Korea’s missile test was self-defensive against threats posed by South Korea and the US with their joint military exercises and advanced weapons. According to KCNA news agency, Ri said that Pyongyang expresses “deep apprehension” over the US chief executive faulting the regular testfire, the exercise of the country’s right to self-defence, as the violation of the UN resolutions and openly revealing his deep-hostility. 

Ri added that Biden’s remarks were “undisguised encroachment on North Korea’s right to self-defence and provocation. He said that Washington might face “something that is not good” if it continues to make “thoughtless remarks”. Ri thinks that the new US administration “obviously took its first step wrong”. He even accused the Biden administration of “exploiting” every opportunity to provoke Pyongyang by branding it as a “security threat”. 

Further, North Korea slammed South Korea-US exercises which ended last week. As per reports, Ri said that the US insisted on a “gangster-like logic” to be able to bring strategic nuclear assets to South Korea and test intercontinental ballistic missiles at its convenience, but ban North Korea from testing even a tactical weapon. He said that North Korea cannot but build invincible physical power for reliably defending the security of the county under the present situation in which South Korea and the United States constantly pose military threats, while persistently conducting dangerous war exercises and introducing advanced weapons. 

North Korea’s missile test 

Thursday’s missile test was North Korea’s first ballistic launch in almost a year and the first since Joe Biden became the US President. Following the missile launch, Biden, along with Japan and South Korean leaders, condemned North Korea’s missile launch and said that the US will “respond accordingly”. It is worth mentioning that under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing ballistic missiles. 

It is worth mentioning that KCNA reported that the new missile is able to carry a payload of 2.5 tons which would make it capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. It further said that the country had an “improved version of a solid-fuel engine” and was capable of low altitude gliding leap type flight mode. Several experts have suggested that Thursday’s missiles were the same as the ones unveiled at a military parade in Pyongyang last October. 

(Image: AP)