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North Korea on Saturday defended its recent flurry of missile tests as a legitimate counter to U.S. military threats.
The reclusive communist country has conducted six sanctions-busting launches in less than two weeks, the latest coming Thursday with the firing of a pair of ballistic missiles.
On Tuesday, it fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, prompting an alert for people in affected areas underneath to take cover.
“The missile test launch by the DPRK is a regular and planned self-defensive step for defending the country’s security and the regional peace from the US direct military threats that have lasted for more than half a century,” North Korea’s civil aviation agency said, without specifying which launch, according to state-run news agency KCNA.
The government agency issued the statement after the International Civil Aviation Organization, holding its annual assembly in Montreal, on Friday condemned North Korea’s missile tests of recent months and called them a danger to civil aviation.
