North Korea on Tuesday fired a ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload that flew over U.S. ally Japan and splashed into the northern Pacific Ocean.
"We condemn the ballistic missile launch conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on 29 August 2017 in the strongest terms … The DPRK must cease ballistic missile launches and other activities that threaten regional and global security and stability and abide by the relevant UNSC resolutions," the statement said.
The ministry claimed that the test had violated resolutions of the UN Security Council as well as Pyongyang’s international obligations.
"The trajectory of the missile, flying over a neighbouring state, is further testimony to the reckless and provocative behaviour adopted by the DPRK," the statement said.
North Korea said the United States on Tuesday of driving the Korean peninsula towards an extreme level of an explosion and declared that it was justified in responding with tough counter-measures.
Han Tae Song, North Korea's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, said U.S. "pressure and provocative acts" would only give his country grounds to take unspecified measures.
"It is an undeniable fact that the U.S. is driving the situation of the Korean peninsula towards an extreme level of explosion by deploying huge strategic assets around the peninsula, by conducting a series of nuclear war drills and maintaining nuclear freeze and blackmail for over half a century," Han told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
The National Nuclear Security Administration tested the "non-nuclear functions" of its newest nuclear weapon from an F-15E Strike Eagle August 8, the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced on Monday. The jet took off from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
This test comes in the midst of increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula between the United States and its adversaries, and ahead of an expected troop surge in Afghanistan.
