Sharjah24 - AFP: North Korean leader Kim Jong has blamed the United States for tensions on the peninsula and accused the South of hypocrisy, state media reported Tuesday, as he opened an exhibition showcasing his nuclear-armed country's weapons.
The US is the "root cause" of instability, he said in an address to the "Self-Defence 2021" display, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, which have made rapid progress under Kim.
In 2017, it tested missiles that can reach the whole of the continental United States and carried out its most powerful nuclear explosion to date, and Pyongyang says it needs its arsenal to protect itself against a US invasion.
Analysts say North Korea is seeking to normalise its status as a nuclear power.
The Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it has no hostile intent towards Pyongyang, but Kim said: "I am very curious if there are people or countries who believe that."
"There is no basis in their actions for believing that it is not hostile," he added, according to KCNA, but insisted that the North's weapons were for self-defence and not aimed at any particular country.
Pictures carried by state media showed Kim at the exhibition in front of the gigantic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) revealed at a night-time military parade last year.
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