Photos published by the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a stadium packed with likely tens of thousands of people in COVID-19 masks, raising their fists in the air and holding signs that read: “Let’s eradicate U.S. imperialist invaders” and “The entire U.S. mainland is within our striking range.”
The rallies came amid heightened tensions in the region, as the pace of North Korean weapons demonstrations and the United States’ joint military exercises with South Korea have both intensified in a cycle of tit-for-tat.
In their latest telephone discussion over North Korea, the U.S. and South Korean nuclear envoys accused Pyongyang of distorting history by repeating old claims that the United States caused the Korean War, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.
The South Korean official, Kim Gunn, and President Joe Biden’s special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, also noted how Pyongyang in likewise manner was blaming Washington and its Asian allies for recent tensions triggered by its intensified weapons tests and verbal threats of nuclear conflict. They vowed tighter diplomatic and security cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo to cope with the threat, the South Korean ministry said.
Since the start of 2022, North Korea has test-fired around 100 missiles of various ranges as Kim attempts to display a dual ability to conduct nuclear strikes on both the U.S. mainland and South Korea. The North is also speeding up efforts to launch its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, following a failed first attempt in May.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
