North Korea condemns UN Security Council meeting over missile launch

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) — North Korea on Friday condemned the UN Security Council for holding a meeting to discuss the latest firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by Pyongyang.

In a statement, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong called her country's latest missile launch a "rightful" exercise of self-defense, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.

"No one has any justification to take issue with the launch of our new-type ICBM," the agency quoted her as saying in a statement published by state-run media.

She also called the UN Security Council meeting, which was held on Thursday, "unfair and biased" and said the latest launch was a response to the US' "hostile" policy against her country.

North Korea on Wednesday fired a long-range ballistic missile into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, claiming to have set a new record flight time of 4,491 seconds, the longest for a North Korean missile.

The missile came down in what South Korea calls the East Sea and Tokyo calls the Sea of Japan.

The launch on Wednesday came just a day after Kim Yo-jong warned that Pyongyang would take "clear and resolute" action against US surveillance flights within North Korea's "economic water zone."

Pyongyang has launched 12 missiles this year, including the intercontinental ballistic-class Hwasong-15, Hwasong-17, and Hwasong-18 missiles, according to the Japanese news agency NHK.

North Korea also launched its first military spy satellite in May, which crashed into the Korean Sea.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid