(Seoul) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted in the official media on Tuesday as saying that the United States was the root cause of the instability on the Korean Peninsula.
Despite recent calls for talks from the United States, Kim said at the opening ceremony of a security exhibition in Pyongyang on Monday that “there is no reason to believe it is not hostile.”
The Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it has no warlike intentions against North Korea.
According to the official KCNA news agency, “none of their actions indicate that they are hostile,” he said, while the weapons his country possesses are neither for self-defense nor to target any particular country.
Photos released by the official media show President Bose posing at an exhibition in front of the largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) unveiled in Pyongyang during last year’s military parade.
The ruler sat immortal, smoked, with senior officers and officers, large portraits of the ruler in military uniform hung in the exhibition hall.
The North Korean leader spoke as his country conducted a long-range missile test and hypersonic missile test in recent weeks.
In 2018, Kim Jong Un was the first North Korean leader to meet the US president. But discussions have stalled since the second summit with Donald Trump in Hanoi in 2019, which Pyongyang was not ready to accept in terms of international sanctions relief and gestures.
Washington has repeatedly insisted that North Korean officials come forward to meet at any time and place.
The right to self-defense
Kim Jong-un’s speech and exhibition aims to justify Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic programs as “part of the right to self-defense,” said Park Van-koon, a professor of North Korean research at Eva Women’s University.
“North Korea organized the exhibition with the aim of pretending that its weapons programs are no different than other countries,” he told the AFP.
The United States’ ally South Korea has improved its own military capabilities, successfully testing its first submarine-launched ballistic missile and launching a supersonic ship missile.
Last week, Pyongyang and Seoul re-established their ties, signaling a warming of relations over the past few months in the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, favorable to dialogue.
But Kim Jong Un accused Seoul of having “irresponsible ambition” and “unjust and double-faced” attitudes.
He added that their “frantic and dangerous efforts to strengthen the military would destroy the military balance of the Korean Peninsula and increase military instability and danger.”
Kim Jong Un’s defense exhibition is being held in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the ruling Labor Party. Aerobatic and martial arts performances were presented at the event.
North Korea closed its borders last year to protect itself from the corona virus that appeared in neighboring China, its main ally and key partner in trade and aid.
The isolated country says there are no Govt-19 cases, which experts suspect, but this self-imposed siege is hitting its economy hard.
The UN expert report in early October promised that the regime would continue its weapons program despite the country’s economic difficulties.
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