North Korea will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile program in defiance of the United States and its allies, a top Pyongyang envoy said on Friday, adding that a state of “semi-war” now existed o
North Korea will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile program in defiance of the United States and its allies, a top Pyongyang envoy said on Friday, adding that a state of “semi-war” now existed on the divided Korean peninsula.
So Mr Se Pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, denounced the huge joint US-South Korean military exercises taking place which he said were aimed at “decapitation of the supreme leadership of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)” and conquering Pyongyang.
“If the United States continues, then we have to make the counter-measures also. So we have to develop, and we have to make more deterrence, nuclear deterrence,” Mr So, who is also North Korea’s envoy to the UN-sponsored conference on disarmament, said in an interview with Reuters conducted in English.
North Korea fired another short-range missile off its east coast on Friday, South Korean officials said, as regional leaders met in Washington to discuss the threat of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
It was the latest in a series of North Korean missile launches during what has been an extended period of elevated military tension on the Korean peninsula, triggered by Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test on January 6. The launch came as the South Korean coastguard reported that around 70 fishing vessels had been forced back to port after GPS navigation issues caused by North Korean radio-wave jamming.
South Korea’s defence ministry said the surface-to-air missile was fired at around 12:45 pm (0345 GMT) from Sondok.
The launch came in the middle of a two-day nuclear security summit being hosted by US President Barack Obama in Washington.
Meanwhile, North Korea has announced it is blocking Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and South Korean websites in a move underscoring its concern with the spread of online info.
