The leader of nuclear-armed North Korea, Kim Jong Un, has blamed the United States for tensions on the peninsula, state media reported Tuesday.
The US is the "root cause" of instability, he said in an address to the "Self-Defence 2021" display, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
"There is no basis in their actions for believing that it is not hostile," he added, according to KCNA, but insisted that the North's weapons were for self-defence and not aimed at any particular country. His address came after North Korea in recent weeks tested a long-range cruise missile, a train-launched weapon, and what it said was a hypersonic warhead.
Kim's comments and the show itself were intended to justify Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes as "part of its right to self-defence", said Park Won-gon, professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University. Seoul is itself on a multi-billion-dollar drive to step up its military capabilities, successfully testing its first submarine-launched ballistic missile in September -- putting South Korea among an elite group of nations with proven SLBM technology -- and revealing a supersonic cruise missile.
Pyongyang closed its borders early last year to protect itself against the coronavirus pandemic that first emerged in neighbouring China, its key diplomatic ally and main provider of trade and aid.
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