North Korea's envoy to the UN has warned the US to expect "catastrophic consequences"
North Korea's envoy to the UN has warned the US to expect "catastrophic consequences" if the current war of words continues to escalate, as the country defended its right to carry out Tuesday's missile test.
A short-range ballistic missile flew over Hokkaido, one of Japan's main island territories, before splashing down in the Pacific. The "reckless" launch was condemned by Tokyo as an "unprecedented, serious and grave threat" to the region.
The North's ambassador in Geneva, Han Tae-song, told the UN's disarmament forum: "My country has every reason to respond with tough counter-measures as an exercise of its right to self-defence.
China urges US and South Korea not to provoke Pyongyang
"The US should be fully responsible for the catastrophic consequences it will entail."
Washington was driving the Korean peninsula "towards an extreme level of explosion" by deploying its strategic assets there, he claimed.
And Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's official newspaper, said: "The US should know that it can neither browbeat the DPRK with any economic sanctions and military threats and blackmail nor make the DPRK flinch from the road chosen by itself."
北朝鮮の国連大使、我が国も自衛権は、あり、自衛の手段として、強硬な反撃を加える十分な理由もある。米国がやっていることが意味する破局について責めを負うのは米国自身である、と。
