Japan will strike any North Korean ballistic missile that threatens to hit Japan in the coming weeks after Pyongyang recently fired medium-range missiles, a government source said on Saturday, CBS News reported.
Pyongyang's deputy U.N. ambassador Ri Tong Il also repeated that his government "made it very clear we will carry out a new form of nuclear test" but refused to elaborate, saying only that "I recommend you to wait and see what it is," according to CBS.
His comments came at North Korea's second press conference at the United Nations in two weeks, a surprising rate for the reclusive Communist regime, CBS reported.
Ri blamed the U.S. for aggravating tensions on the Korean Peninsula by continuing "very dangerous" military drills with South Korea, by pursuing action in the U.N. Security Council against his country's recent ballistic missile launches and by going after Pyongyang's human rights performance, according to CBS.
North Korea walked away from the six-party nuclear disarmament talks in 2009 over disagreements on how to verify steps the North was meant to take to end its nuclear programs, CBS reported. The U.S. and its allies are demanding that the North demonstrate its sincerity in ending its drive to acquire nuclear weapons.
Since pulling out of the six-party talks, the North has conducted two nuclear tests, at least two long-range rocket tests and most recently short-range rocket launches, according to CBS.
Using the initials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the country's official name, Ri said, "The DPRK has been making strenuous, hard efforts, very generous, toward easing the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but ignoring all this generous position of the DPRK and its proposals, the U.S. went ahead with opening the joint military drills, very aggressive nature, and they're now expanding in a crazy manner the scale of this exercise," CBS reported.
South Korean experts this week claimed that "two crude and decidedly low-tech" small, camera-equipped drones had been flown across the border by the North and crashed in South Korea, according to CBS.
