German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (right) hands the German flag to Gen. Paul LaCamera (third from left), commander of the UN Command, during a ceremony marking Germany's admission into the multinational command at its headquarters in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, on Friday. (Yonhap)
North Korea criticized Germany for its recent entry into the United States-led UN Command, calling it an act of ruining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, its state media said Tuesday.
On Friday, Germany formally joined the multinational mechanism overseeing the armistice of the 1950-53 Korean War as the 18th official member state.
The North "strongly denounces Germany's entry into the United Nations Command, regarding it as an act of wrecking peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and aggravating the situation," a spokesperson of Pyongyang's foreign ministry said in a release carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
"Germany's improper act is again reminiscent of its inglorious past in which it plunged mankind into the bloodbath of the Second World War and inflicted untold misfortune and pain upon mankind in the last century," the ministry said, warning that Berlin "will be held wholly responsible for all the consequences."
The North claimed that Washington is attempting to revive the function of the command "which should have been extinct in the last century" in a move toward the Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to deter the North and its neighboring countries.
The North then vowed to "take more thorough measures for bolstering up its self-defensive capabilities" to deter the current "ever-escalating military confrontation" on the peninsula, according to the KCNA. (Yonhap)
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