North Korea has labeled U.S. national security adviser John Bolton a "warmonger" for saying that recent missile tests by the nuclear-armed country had violated U.N. sanctions, adding that giving up the test-firings would amount to relinquishing their right to self-defense, state-run media quoted the country's Foreign Ministry as saying Monday.
A statement issued by the official Korean Central News Agency quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as singling out Bolton, who last week said the recent tests had "no doubt" violated United Nations resolutions. Referring to tests of short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and May 9 that ended a more than 500-day pause in the tests that began in late 2017, the statement also called the launches a "regular military drill."
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 officials said, using the acronym for the North's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.