Pyongyang, May 21 (KCNA) — The U.S. has further boosted its arms sales to its vassal countries in the Korean peninsula and the Northeast Asian region, and this has emerged as a challenge to regional security that should no longer be overlooked.

Recently, the U.S. Department of State approved the sale of 24 MH-60Rs, new-type helicopters for maritime operation, and parts of AH-64E Apache helicopters to ROK in the amount of more than four billion US dollars, asserting that it would contribute to improving the ROK’s ability for coping with the current and future threats and equipping it with creditable military capabilities strong enough to deter enemy.

This is a part of the U.S. arms sales and the ROK’s ill-intended arms build-up, being pushed forward according to the agreement made at the U.S.-ROK summit held last October that specified the ROK’s purchase of U.S.-made military equipment amounting to 25 billion US dollars until 2030.

In essence, through the arms sales the U.S. seeks to maximize its financial gains by taking advantage of the ROK’s ever-increasing military spending, and at the same time, use the ROK as its armed shock brigade for materializing its strategic hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.

Such unilateral arms build-up that goes beyond the defensive nature will only provoke the other party’s corresponding measures for securing overwhelming military muscle.

With regard to it, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea answered to a question raised by KCNA, clarifying the stand that the massive U.S. arms exports to the ROK, Japan, Taiwan and other allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific region constitute a cause of ever-escalating regional military tensions including the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait and predict the gloomy prospect of the regional situation.

The spokesman added that the gravity of such arms build-up and sales lies in the fact that they are going far beyond the ordinary defensive demands and being conducted in a specific way aimed at military attack on specific countries, strictly subject to the materialization of the U.S. strategy for securing military edge.

Today the ROK’s irrational wild ambition for arms buildup is a typical product of the execution of the new military strategy by the present U.S. administration seeking to ensure the flexibility of military attack posture against the rival nations throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Last year the U.S. pressurized NATO to make its European allies increase their military expenditure to 5 percent of their GDPs. Now it presses its Asian allies to follow it, pressing them to boost their military expenditure.

Under such pressure, the ROK agreed to increase its military spending to 3.5 percent of its GDP at an early date, buy U.S.-made weaponry costing 25 billion US dollars until 2030 and offer the U.S. 33 billion US dollars as the upkeep for the U.S. forces in the ROK. The ROK was termed “exemplary ally” in return.

The U.S. agreed to sell 624 GBU-39 long-range guided bombs to the ROK last December, hosted a contract between it and the Boeing Company for improving F-15Ks of the ROK air force in February and approved the sale of airborne communication security equipment amounting to 0.2 billion US dollars in March.

Meanwhile, the U.S. approved its sale of eight kinds of combat equipment including HIMARS, Javelin anti-tank missile, howitzer and suicide drone and relevant parts amounting to 11.1 billon US dollars to Taiwan last December. It also systematically transfers Tomahawk cruise missiles and other attack weapons to Japan.

Global security crises that break out in a chain go to prove that such transfer of latest lethal weaponry by the U.S., the world’s biggest death merchant, cyclically causes ever-escalating regional military conflict and contradiction and ever-deepening unpredictability and ever-worsening instability.

Such arms buildup pursued by a belligerent party can never be overlooked by the other party and it is clear that the latter will take corresponding measures.

To thoroughly deter the imbalance of power enforced by the U.S. and its vassal forces and strongly cope it is a prerequisite to safeguarding national sovereign rights and ensuring regional peace and stability.

The defence power of the DPRK will strongly deter all security threats, posed by the enemy nations, through ceaseless update and evolution and full war readiness, creditably defend the national sovereignty and security and regional peace and proactively contribute to ensuring global strategic stability.