North Korea threatens a strong military step against Japan

Seoul, South Korea — North Korea threatened on Tuesday to take a “resolute and decisive military step” against Japan while criticizing Tokyo’s adoption of a national security strategy as an attempt to turn the country into “an offensive military giant.”

The North’s statement came four days after Japan announced a security strategy that includes a counter-strike capability against enemy targets and doubles its military spending to gain a more offensive position against threats from Porcelain and North Korea.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Japan’s push to acquire counter-strike capability has nothing to do with self-defense, but is instead a clear attempt to acquire “preemptive strike capability aimed at launching attacks in territories of other countries”.

“Japan’s foolish attempt to satiate its ruthless greed — building its military invasion capability under the guise of (North Korea’s) legitimate exercise of the right to self-defense — cannot be justified or tolerated,” an unnamed spokesman said. of the ministry. he said in a statement carried by state media.

The statement accused the United States of supporting and abetting Japanese military ambitions and undermining regional peace. He said such US moves are forcing North Korea to work hard to complete its plans to develop new strategic weapons to thwart enemy attempts to invade it.

The statement said North Korea wants to make sure it can take “a resolute and decisive military step” to protect its sovereignty and national interests in the wake of the regional security complexity caused by the Japanese strategy.

“Our country will continue to take steps to show how much we are concerned and disgusted by Japan’s greedy and unfair attempt to realize its crazy ambitions,” the statement said.

As in other Asian countries, anti-Japanese sentiments still run deep in North Korea due to Japan’s wartime atrocities. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 before it split into a US-backed capitalist South Korea and a Soviet-backed socialist North Korea at the end of World War II.

North Korea’s state media routinely criticizes Japan’s colonial past. His statement on Tuesday called Japan “a war criminal state that inflicted untold misfortune and suffering on the Korean people.”

North Korea’s search for missiles with nuclear warheads is a major security concern for Japan, which is within its range along with South Korea and the mainland United States. In October, North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile at Japan, forcing Tokyo to issue evacuation alerts and stop trains.

On Tuesday, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno accused North Korea of ​​posing “serious and pressing threats” to Japanese and regional security with its unprecedented pace of missile tests this year. He said that Japan will cooperate with the United States and South Korea to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea.

The Japanese strategy names China as “the biggest strategic challenge” — before North Korea and Russia — to Tokyo’s efforts to ensure peace, security and stability.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last week that “exalting the so-called threat from China to find an excuse for (Japan’s) military buildup is doomed to fail.”

On Tuesday, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Lim Soosuk reiterated the government’s position that Seoul wants Tokyo to seek its consent if it plans to take any action that affects South Korea’s national security, such as using of pre-emptive strikes on the Korean peninsula.

South Korea and Japan are key US allies and closely linked economically and culturally. But they often quarrel over issues stemming from the colonial occupation of Tokyo.

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.