North Korea said it will pursue unspecified “additional military options” in response to Japan’s expanding defence capabilities, accusing Tokyo of reviving the ambitions of a “war criminal state”.
Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said that Pyongyang would not remain a “passive onlooker” to what she described as Japan’s accelerating transformation into a military power, according to a statement published on Wednesday by the official Korean Central News Agency.
“War criminal state Japan’s possession of the capability for pre-emptive attack is a grave threat destroying global peace and security,” Kim said, referring to Tokyo’s efforts to acquire long-range strike capabilities.
North Korea would “make Japan feel that its security has been exposed to greater danger due to its greediness”, she said. “We should make it regret.”
Kim cited Japan’s recent test-firing of a US-made Tomahawk long-range cruise missile and its participation in US-led military exercises in the Philippines as evidence that Tokyo is speeding up its military expansion.
The statement marks Pyongyang’s latest effort to denounce Japan’s biggest military build-up since World War II, while seeking to justify its own continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. North Korea has frequently portrayed closer security cooperation among the US, Japan and South Korea as preparation for an invasion, a characterisation Washington and its allies reject.
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