Photos released by North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a packed stadium with probably tens of thousands of people wearing COVID-19 masks, raising their fists in the air and holding signs reading: “Eradicate the US imperialist invaders” and “The entire continental US is within our striking range.”
The demonstrations came amid heightened tensions in the region, as the pace of North Korean weapons demonstrations and joint US military exercises with South Korea have intensified in a tit-for-tat cycle. eye.
In their latest phone conversation about North Korea, the US and South Korean nuclear envoys accused Pyongyang of distorting history by repeating old claims that the US caused the Korean War, the Korean Foreign Ministry said. South.
South Korean official Kim Gunn and President Joe Biden’s special representative for North Korea Sung Kim also noted how Pyongyang similarly blamed Washington and its Asian allies for recent tensions sparked by its intensified weapons tests and threats. verbals of nuclear conflict. . They promised closer diplomatic and security cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo to deal with the threat, the South Korean ministry said.
Since the beginning of 2022, North Korea has tested around 100 missiles of various ranges as Kim tries to show a dual capability to carry out nuclear strikes on both the mainland United States and South Korea. North Korea is also speeding up efforts to put its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, following a failed first attempt in May.
