North Korea on Monday described its latest ballistic missile launch as a simulated nuclear attack on South Korea as leader Kim Jong Un called for his nuclear forces to sharpen their war readiness in the face of his rival’s expanding military exercises with the United States.
The report by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency came after the South Korean and Japanese militaries on Sunday detected North Korea firing a short-range ballistic missile into waters off its eastern coast. The launch came less than an hour before the United States flew long-range B-1B bombers for joint training with South Korean warplanes as part of the allies’ biggest combined training in years, which the North has condemned as a rehearsal for a potential invasion.
Saying that his enemies are getting “ever more pronounced in their moves for aggression,” Kim urged the need to bolster his nuclear deterrent “exponentially” and laid out unspecified “strategic tasks” for further developing his nuclear forces and improving their war readiness, KCNA said. This indicated that the North could up the ante in its weapons demonstrations in coming weeks or months.
The latest ICBM test last Thursday came hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol traveled to Tokyo for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which was partially aimed at rebuilding security ties between the often-estranged U.S. allies in the face of North Korean nuclear threats.
North Korea has long portrayed U.S.-South Korean military drills as rehearsals for an invasion, although the allies describe those exercises as defensive. Many experts say North Korea uses its rivals’ drills as a pretext to aggressively expand its nuclear arsenal and overall military capability.
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