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N. Korea bashes S. Korea for ballistic missile test

June 4, 2015

South Korea successfully test-fires a ballistic missile with a range of at least 500 kilometers from a firing range of the state-run Agency for Defense Development in Taean, South Chungcheong Province on June 3, 2015. (Yonhap file photo)

SEOUL, June 4 (Yonhap) — North Korea condemned South Korea on Thursday for its test-firing of a ballistic missile capable of reaching nearly all parts of the communist nation.

On Wednesday, the South carried out its first-ever launch of a ballistic missile with a range of more than 500 kilometers as part of efforts to better counter ever-growing nuclear and missile threats by the North. President Park Geun-hye watched the test.

The development of the new striking asset came after Seoul and Washington announced their missile guidelines which enabled South Korea to have a ballistic missile with a range of up to 800 kilometers.

“(The test-firing) is part of acts of treachery as it was aimed to hurt the fellow countrymen with arms provided by outside forces,” an unidentified spokesman for the Strategic Force of the (North) Korean People’s Army said in a statement.

The statement was reported by the communist country’s Korean Central News Agency in its English dispatch.

Calling Park a “wicked woman” and “a military dog” of the U.S., the spokesman even warned that such acts “will only lead to a dog’s death in the long run.”

The statement also said North Korea has in place “the strongest nuclear deterrent and powerful strategic rockets” and it is capable of “turning the U.S. mainland into a sea in flames,” vowing to push for measures “to bolster up the capabilities for self-defense.”

North Korea has ratcheted up tensions further by zeroing in on developing ballistic missiles, miniaturized warheads to fit atop them, and their delivery means. Last month, Pyongyang announced that it succeeded in conducting an underwater test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).