NOKOR RAPS US FOR LETTING SOKOR BUILD POWERFUL MISSILES

North Korea said Monday the US' having allowed South Korea to build more powerful missiles was an example of its hostile policy against the North, warning that it could lead to an “acute and unstable situation” on the Korean Peninsula, Hyung-jin Kim reported for the Associated Press (AP).

It’s North Korea’s first response to the May 21 summit between the leaders of the United States and South Korea, during which the US ended decades-long restrictions that capped South Korea’s missile development and allowed its ally to develop weapons with unlimited ranges.

The accusation of US policy being hostile to North Korea would matter because it said it won’t return to talks as long as US hostility persists.

But the latest statement was still attributed to an individual commentator, not a government body, suggesting North Korea may still want to leave room for potential diplomacy with the Biden administration.

“The termination step is a stark reminder of the US hostile policy toward (North Korea) and its shameful double-dealing,” Kim Myong Chol, an international affairs critic, said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“The US is mistaken, however. It is a serious blunder for it to pressure (North Korea) by creating asymmetric imbalance in and around the Korean peninsula as this may lead to the acute and unstable situation on the Korean peninsula now technically at war,” he said.

The United States had previously barred South Korea from developing a missile with a range of longer than 800 kilometers (500 miles) out of concerns about a regional arms race. The range is enough for a South Korean weapon to strike all of North Korea but is short of hitting other neighbors like China and Japan.

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