Kim's sister slams UNSC meeting over ICBM launch, defends it as exercise of self-defense
North Korea fires a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 12, in this photo released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. Yonhap
The powerful sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Friday condemned the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for holding a meeting over the North's latest firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), calling it a "rightful" exercise of self-defense.
Kim Yo-jong expressed "great displeasure" at the UNSC, as its members met Thursday (New York time) to discuss the North's launch of a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel ICBM the previous day.
Calling the UNSC meeting an "unfair and biased" move, she said the ICBM launch serves as a "rightful" exercise of self-defense in response to the United States' "hostile" policy against her country, according to state media.
"No one has any justification to take issue with the launch of our new-type ICBM," Kim said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
Under UNSC resolutions, the North is banned from any launches using ballistic missile technology.
In the latest UNSC session, the U.S. and other members sought to hold North Korea accountable, but failed due to opposition from China and Russia, veto power-wielding permanent members.
Kim also vowed that her country will build the "most overwhelming" nuclear deterrence until Washington abandons its hostile policy against Pyongyang.
"The price the U.S. will have to pay for bothering us will never be light and I will not hide the fact that very inauspicious things await the U.S.," she said, without elaborating on details.
She warned that the North's response to U.S. efforts to enhance the "visibility" of its strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula will become even more "unrestrained" in measure and scale.
President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden made the agreement over the U.S. assets in a joint declaration during their summit in Washington in April as part of efforts to deter Pyongyang's military threats.
On Thursday, South Korea and the U.S. staged combined air drills, involving a U.S. B-52H strategic bomber, over the peninsula in a show of force against the North's latest launch.
The U.S. has also pledged to send a nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine to the peninsula in the joint declaration for the first time in decades. (Yonhap)