May 27 (UPI) — North Korea called John Bolton a “warmonger” Monday after the White House national security adviser said the recent ballistic missile tests by the regime had “no doubt” violated United Nations resolutions.
An unidentified foreign ministry official said the tests of short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and May 9 were a “regular military drill.”
In the statement, issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, the official said it has a right to self-defense.
What the U.S. is taking issue with “is not about the range but the prohibition of the launch itself using ballistic technology. This is, after all, tantamount to a demand that the DPRK should give up its self-defensive right,” the official said. He used an acronym for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“Our military exercises are not aimed at anyone, nor are they dangerous to neighboring countries, but [the U.S.] is impudently involving themselves in other countries’ affairs,” the official said.
The statement took aim directly against Bolton, as opposed to President Donald Trump who said during a state visit to Japan he is “not personally bothered” by the tests.
The official said it would “be fit to call Bolton not a security adviser striving for security but a security-destroying adviser who is wrecking peace and security. It is not at all strange that perverse words always come out from the mouth of a structurally defective guy.”
The official added: “Such a human defect deserves an earlier vanishing.”
The official also blasted Bolton’s description of North Korea as part of the “Axis of Evil,” saying the national security adviser was a threat to the peace process.
North Korea was reacting to comments Bolton made Saturday in Tokyo before Trump’s arrival.
“U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from firing any ballistic missiles,” Bolton said. “In terms of violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, there’s no doubt about that.”
Last month, North Korean first vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui described Bolton as “dim-sighted” by placing too much responsibility on North Korea to make concessions before a third summit between the two leaders.
Bolton said the United States wants to reopen talk with North Korea. The United States has not had much contact with North Korea since Trump came out of a February summit with Kim Jong Un without a deal, Bolton said.
On Monday, Trump reiterated his stand the missiles tested recently are “small weapons.”
“All I know is there have been no nuclear tests, no ballistic missiles going out, no long-range missiles going out and I think that someday we’ll have a deal,” Trump said during a news conference with Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
North Korea has not recently tested a long-range missile that could reach the United States. North Korea had last fired off those kind of missiles in late 2017.
Trump said he is “no rush” for a deal but continues to believe to believe Kim will agree to give up his nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, even though the hasn’t agreed to denuclearization.
On Monday, Trump praised Kim, calling him a “smart man” who might have launched the missiles earlier this month to “get attention.”
Nevertheless, Abe is concerned because the short-range missiles pose a threat to Japan’s security. Tokyo and Pyongyan are 800 miles apart.
“This is violating the Security Council resolution,” Abe said while standing next to Trump at the news conference. “It is of great regret. But at the same time between Kim Jong Un and President Trump a certain new approach was taken and that is something that I pay tribute to.”
