North Korea on Saturday criticized the United States for abusing the country's "right to self-defense," days after President Joe Biden said Pyongyang's latest launch of ballistic missiles violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.
"The new U.S. administration obviously took its first step wrong," Ri Pyong Chol, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, said in a statement carried in English by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
"We cannot but build invincible physical power for reliably defending the security of our state under the present situation in which South Korea and the U.S. constantly pose military threats to the Korean peninsula," Ri said.
Ri, who has led North Korea's nuclear and missile development, is regarded as a close aide to leader Kim Jong Un. The statement, dated Friday, underscores Pyongyang's eagerness to continue to strengthen its military capacity to counter the United States.
"It is a gangster-like logic that it is allowable for the U.S. to ship the strategic nuclear assets into the Korean peninsula and launch ICBMs any time it wants but not allowable for the DPRK," referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
North Korea said it test-fired new tactical guided projectiles on Thursday. Ri observed the launch of those that appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles. U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibit Pyongyang from using any ballistic missile technology.
Biden's predecessor Donald Trump did not express concern over North Korea's launches of short-range ballistic missiles, given that they were not longer-range ones that could threaten the continental United States.
North Korea intends to watch how Biden reacts to its test-firing of short-range ballistic missiles, with expectations growing that his administration may take a tougher stance against Pyongyang than Trump's team did, foreign affairs experts say.
Trump engaged in unprecedented summit diplomacy with Kim. The former U.S. president met North Korea's leader three times in 2018 and 2019 in the hope of convincing Pyongyang to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Negotiations, however, made little progress during Trump's four years in the White House that ended on Jan. 20 this year, with the two nations at odds over issues including the degree of sanctions relief Pyongyang should receive for taking denuclearization steps.
Last week, North Korea pledged to ignore U.S. attempts to hold bilateral talks unless Washington withdraws its hostile policy toward Pyongyang, lambasting the Biden administration for trying to use North Korea-U.S. contact as a "means for gaining time."
Pyongyang and Washington have no diplomatic relations.
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