After the United States claimed that the nuclear-armed nation had provided rockets and missiles to Russia’s private military company Wagner, North Korea on Sunday denied giving Moscow any weapons.
By selling Pyongyang weaponry in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, Washington earlier this month classified the Wagner group as a “transnational criminal enterprise.”
According to national security spokesperson John Kirby, the White House displayed images from US intelligence showing Russian train carriages entering North Korea, loading up with infantry rockets and missiles, and then leaving for Russia.
In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a senior North Korean official rejected the accusations, warning that the US will face a “really undesirable result” if it persists in spreading the “self-made rumour”.
“Trying to tarnish the image of (North Korea) by fabricating a non-existent thing is a grave provocation that can never be allowed and that cannot but trigger its reaction,” said Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs.
He also called it “a foolish attempt to justify its offer of weapons to Ukraine”.
Ahead of Moscow’s assault of Kyiv this week, US President Joe Biden pledged 31 Abrams tanks, one of the most potent and advanced weapons in the US army.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, criticized the action on Friday, accusing Washington of “further crossing the red line” by deploying the tanks into Ukraine.
