North Korea said Thursday its latest test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile did not target the United States or South Korea, emphasizing it is merely exercising its right to self-defense.
The remarks by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson came a day after North Korea confirmed it had successfully test-fired a new type of SLBM. The U.N. Security Council convened an emergency meeting in response to the latest developments on the Korean Peninsula.
"It truly concerns us that the U.S. is showing abnormal reactions to the exercise of the right to self-defense proper and just to a sovereign state," the spokesperson was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea's deterrence "does not aim at a specified state or forces but is for preventing the war itself and defending the sovereign rights," the spokesperson said. "And the U.S. and south Korea have been ruled out as our arch-enemies."
"When doing the recent test-firing we did not have the U.S. in mind nor aimed at it, but it is the work which had already been planned purely for the defense of the country. So there is no need for the U.S. to worry or trouble itself over the test-firing," the spokesperson added.
North Korea said it test-fired a new type of SLBM on Tuesday, increasing worries the nuclear-armed nation's technological advances on hard-to-intercept weapons threaten peace and stability in the region.
Pyongyang is banned from firing ballistic missiles under U.N. Security Council resolutions that impose sanctions on the country.
At its emergency gathering on Wednesday in New York, however, the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a joint statement condemning Pyongyang's launch of an SLBM in the face of opposition from China and Russia, according to a diplomatic source.
China and Russia are traditionally friendly to North Korea
North Korea has test-fired other missiles in recent weeks. On Sept. 15 it launched a projectile from a "railway-borne missile system," while it fired what state-run media said was a newly developed hypersonic missile on Sept. 28.
Pyongyang also conducted tests of a new long-range cruise missile in early September -- the country's first missile test since late March. North Korea last test-fired an SLBM in October 2019.
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