North Korea said Friday its latest missile firing is a warning against increasing military cooperation between Japan and the US, comparing it to their secret deal in 1905 that paved the way to Tokyo's colonization of Korea.
On Tuesday, the North fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate range ballistic missile over northern Japan into the Pacific Ocean, sending the country on high alert.
In an article titled "Military Collusion Prompting Self-destruction," the Rodong Sinmun, the paper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, berated recent US-Japan military drills as a rash act that would drive an already tense situation on the Korean Peninsula into a flashpoint of nuclear war.
A Hwasong-12 IRBM is launched near Pyongyang on Aug. 29, 2017, in this photo released by the (North) Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 30. (Yonhap)
The paper said their military collusion is a reminder of the so-called Taft?Katsura agreement in which the US recognized the need for Japan to colonize Korea, while Japan agreed to US control over the Philippines. The secret memorandum was signed in July 1905 by then US Secretary of War William Taft and Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Taro. Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
"Our Republic's (the North) toughest-ever steps like the launches of the Hwasong-14 ICBM and Hwasong-12 IRBMs is a grave warning not only to the US but to its blind follower Japan as they pose serious threats to our sovereignty and rights to life and development," the paper said. (Yonhap)
