North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s influential sister on Friday warned of an “overwhelming nuclear deterrent” unless the US abandons its “hostile policy” towards Pyongyang, state media reported.
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Kim Yo Jong also defended North Korea’s launch of a new ICBM, calling it an act of self-defense.
The rocket traveled 1,001 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 6,648 km before crashing into the East Sea, official news agency KCNA said, using the Korean name for the Sea of Japan.
Its trajectory suggested it was capable of reaching United States territory, analysts said.
“Based on the tenet that the United States is unwilling to abandon its anti-North Korea policy … we will strive to install the most overwhelming nuclear deterrent,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released by KCNA.
The launch was an “exercise in self-defense (…) to protect the Korean Peninsula from nuclear war,” she said, adding that no one could blame Pyongyang for Washington’s “hostile policies.”
She then described the reaction to the establishment of the UN Security Council as “unfair and biased”.
In a joint statement, 10 of the 15 members of the Security Council, including South Korea, condemned the latest test, noting that the North’s 20 ballistic missile launches in 2023 were “all gross violations of several Security Council resolutions.”
Earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong accused US military surveillance planes of violating North Korean airspace and warned they could be shot down.
In response to North Korea’s missile launch spree this year, Seoul and Washington have stepped up their security cooperation, saying Pyongyang could expect a nuclear response if it ever uses nuclear weapons against allies.