North Korea Vows to Continue What It Calls Self-Defense Efforts, KCNA says

FILE PHOTO: Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, arrives at the Vostochny Сosmodrome before a meeting of Russia's President Vladimir Putin withNorth Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. Sputnik/Vladimir Smirnov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea said on Saturday it has no choice but to continue efforts to build up capabilities for self-defense and accused the United States and South Korea of pushing the Korean Peninsula into war scenarios.

"The DPRK will further intensify its practical efforts to deter the military threat of the hostile forces and maintain the balance of forces in the region," an unnamed spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said on state news agency KCNA.

In a separate statement, North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, condemned the UN Secretary-General's recent criticism of the nation's firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile, and said weapons testing is for "self-defense."

North Korea flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19, state media said on Friday, amid international uproar over its troops deployed to aid Russia in Ukraine.

The launch on Thursday flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan that tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.

(Reporting by Cynthia Kim in SeoulEditing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)