Pyongyang criticised Japan for designating North Korea, China and Russia as “urgent threats” in the Ministry of Defence’s recent 2025 White Paper, Korean media reported on Friday.
“In the White Paper, Japan has once again insisted that the legitimate measures taken by our country, China and Russia to build up their military forces are an “urgent threat,” a statement by the head of the political department of the Institute for Japan Affairs at the DPRK’s Foreign Ministry, published by the KCNA, said.
According to Pyongyang, this is “brazen nonsense aimed at concealing Japan’s threatening nature.”
The DPRK claims that Tokyo, “having turned all the islands into a military outpost and base for implementing the hegemonic Indo-Pacific strategies of the United States, is gradually escalating the situation in the region” and is also trying to transform its country into a military power.
The report notes that in recent years, Japan has been “pushing ahead with the purchase of foreign long-range missiles and the development of a domestic long-range missile.”
“The development of the current situation once again clearly proves that it is precisely the DPRK’s efforts to strengthen its nuclear war deterrence that serve as a necessary contribution to the powerful suppression of the provocations of the United States and its allies, which are becoming more overt on a global scale, and to the maintenance of strategic balance and stability in the region,” the Japan Institute emphasised.
Pyongyang believes that Japan’s attempts to turn the country into a military power seriously threaten peace and security in the region and calls on countries in the region and the international community to be more vigilant.
Earlier, Japan published the Ministry of Defence’s White Paper for 2025.
In White Paper, North Korea, along with Russia and China, is called a “serious and urgent threat” to Japan, and “serious concerns” are expressed about the possibility of Pyongyang obtaining nuclear and missile technology from Russia in exchange for military co-operation.
