N. Korea renews call for U.S. to end 'hostile policy'

SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Wednesday renewed calls for Washington to drop its "hostile policy" against Pyongyang, amid the reclusive regime's series of saber-rattling since the start of the year.

"It is a universal knowledge that the failure of the situation on the Korean Peninsula to easily be out of the whirlwind of aggravated tension just lies in the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK," the North's foreign ministry said in an English statement.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

Pyongyang also condemned the United States for carrying out "joint war drills, claiming that the move has posed "a grave threat to the security" of the North.

"The U.S. would be well-advised to halt its military threat to our country and withdraw, before anything else, its hostile policy towards the DPRK rather than publicizing the so-called 'diplomatic solution' and 'dialogue,'" it added.

North Korea, meanwhile, launched on Sunday an intermediate-range ballistic missile that it later identified as a "Hwasong 12-type ground-to-ground intermediate- and long-range ballistic missile." The launch marked the North's seventh missile test this year.

It was also the longest-range missile test since the test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in November 2017.

colin@yna.co.kr
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