Pyongyang slams Seoul’s plan to test launch missiles overseas

North Korea has slammed South Korea for its movement to test missiles overseas, while the regime has carried out the test-launches of projectiles including short-range missiles and a super-large multiple rocket launcher as many as 10 times this year.

North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper condemned South Korea’s 2019 anti-infiltration general exercise in an article released on Monday, saying that Seoul’s warmongers are madly trying to engage in a military fight. “The movement of the South Korean warmongers is a display of its attempts to accelerate its rehearsal for an invasion of the North and confront us militarily,” the daily said. “Seoul’s military is plotting to test-launch a missile with the range of up to 800 kilometers in a foreign country.” The North’s state newspaper criticized the South’s latest reports that the South Korean military is considering an overseas test-launch of the Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missile.

The Rodong Sinmun continued to slam South Korea’s movement as a challenge to our (North Korea’s) efforts to establish peace and a violation of the North-South military agreement and an anti-national act. It seems Pyongyang has made such accusations in response to a recent statement by South Korea’s Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo that North Korea’s missile provocations cannot be considered as a violation of the inter-Korean military agreement made in September last year.


In-Chan Hwang hic@donga.com