Pyongyang called this Saturday “provocation” what US President Joe Biden said after his missile test on Thursday and issued warnings that could lead to a new dialectical escalation and military tests on the Korean peninsula.
In a message collected by state propaganda, North Korea assured that it has the right to self-defense , accused the United States of using double standards and, above all, warned of possible consequences if the tone that the White House has been using since the change of administration persists .
The tone and arguments used today by Pyongyang begin to evoke for many a scenario like that of 2017, when the regime opted for a string of missile tests to receive a newcomer Donald Trum p, whose rhetoric ended up inflaming spirits even more in the region until the diplomatic rounds of 2018.
While waiting for Washington to unveil what will be its new strategy for North Korea, Biden decided to respond to the missile test on Thursday and, although he did not speak much less about “fire and fury”, he seriously warned that “there will be an answer if they choose an escalation. ”
Enough for Ri Pyong-chol, one of the main figures of the regime and the official who presided over Thursday’s missile launch, to publish a reply today through the state agency KCNA.
“Such comments by the US president are a violation of our state’s right to self-defense and a provocation, ” said the North Korean military, who also assured that “if the US continues with its unconscious comments without thinking about the consequences, it could face something that is not good”. He assured that Biden’s words also reveal his “deep hostility towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (official name of the country).”
The choice of Ri to respond to Washington may constitute a whole declaration of intent , since apart from being one of the five officially most powerful figures in the regime (he has been a member of the presidium since 2020), he has been above all a of the key subjects for the advances of the missile program in the last five years.
“It is gangster logic that the US is allowed to send strategic nuclear assets to the peninsula and launch intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) whenever it wants but that it is not permissible for the DPRK, its belligerent rival, to test even a tactical weapon (short-range ) “, argued the North Korean marshal.
The regime on Thursday tested what appears to be a new version of the KN-23 (which is itself a local version of the Russian Iskander), modified to carry a 2.5-ton warhead. The KN-23 is a hypersonic missile with a sophisticated guidance system that allows it to trace non-completely parabolic trajectories, which makes it difficult to intercept and – despite its short range – makes it a serious threat to nearby countries such as South Korea. South or Japan.
