SEOUL: North Korea has lambasted European nations for their “illogical thinking” about Pyongyang’s recent military drills after they called for a closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to condemn the peninsular country’s recent “missile launches.”
North Korea on Monday held “routine drills,” which were overseen by the country’s leader Kim Jong-un from an observation post, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, without mentioning any missile launches.
However, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) claimed in a statement that the drills had involved launching two unidentified projectiles, appeared to be “short-range ballistic missiles,” eastward into the sea.
It further alleged that the projectiles had been fired from the Wonsan area on North Korea’s east coast.
On Thursday, Britain, Germany, France, Estonia and Belgium raised the North’s alleged missile firings at the UNSC, calling them in a joint statement a provocative action that violated UN resolutions.
On Saturday, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson slammed the European countries for raising the issue of the drills at a UNSC meeting, condemning these states for “taking issue with our military acts in each and every case.”
“The illogical thinking and sophism of these countries are just gradually bearing a close resemblance to the United States, which is hostile to us,” the North’s spokesperson said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA.
“As widely known to the world, the UK, France and Germany have followed in the footsteps of the US to take the lead in denouncing us since May 2019, while repeating an absurd argument of ‘condemnation’ and ‘violation of resolutions’ of the UN whenever we conducted military drills,” added the statement.
“If even a routine drill of multiple launch rocket system artillerymen should be a target of condemnation and alleged ‘violation of resolutions’, then with what do we hold in check the military forces of the US and South Korea in front of us and how do we defend our state?” the spokesperson asked.
Pyongyang declared an end to a moratorium on its missile tests over two months ago. At a party meeting in late December last year, Kim declared that Pyongyang no longer considered itself bound by an agreement with the US because Washington was not upholding its end of the bargain.
The North Korean leader has already warned “hostile” countries that his military would demonstrate a “new strategic weapon” in the near future. The UNSC, the US, South Korea, and other bodies have slapped multiple sets of harsh sanctions on Pyongyang over its weapons programmes.
International efforts to de-escalate the rising tensions between Pyongyang and Washington resulted in three meetings between Kim and US President Donald Trump, but little tangible progress was made afterwards.
