UN, September 28. /TASS/. The United States continues posing a military threat to North Korea and needs to stop ongoing joint combat drills with South Korea to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s UN envoy to the United Nations Kim Song said.
"I am convinced that a good prospect will be opened for the US-DPRK relations and inter-Korean relations if the US refrains from threatening the DPRK and gives up its hostility towards it," the Korea Herald daily quoted Kim Song as saying at the 76th United Nations General Assembly session in New York.
"The US hostile policy against the DPRK finds its clearest expression in its military threats against us," the North Korean ambassador to the UN continued. "Not a single foreign troop, not a single foreign military base exists in the territory of the DPRK."
"But in South Korea, almost 30,000 US troops are stationed at numerous military bases, maintaining a war posture to take military action against the DPRK at any moment," he said.
"The US hostile policy towards the DPRK is not at all abstract. It is, in itself, military threats and hostile acts we are facing from the US every day," the North Korean diplomat stated. "If the US shows its bold decision to give up its hostile policy, we are also prepared to respond willingly at any time."
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported earlier in the day that North Korea launched at least one unidentified projectile in the direction of the Sea of Japan. The agency added that there was no immediate information about the type of the projectile and the location of the launch site.
The projectile launch was reported on the eve of North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song’s participation in the general political debates at the 76th UN General Assembly in New York.
Kyodo news agency reported that the authorities of Japan believed that North Korea possibly test launched a ballistic missile. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga stated after the reported launch of the missile from North Korea that he issued instructions to government officials to secure the safety of marine and air traffic as well as to prepare for contingencies.
On September 15, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles towards the Sea of Japan. On the same day, the Yonhap news agency quoted the South Korean presidential administration as saying that it had carried out its first-ever test launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine.