North Korea Slams US Golden Dome Missile Defence

North Korea’s foreign ministry has condemned the US Golden Dome missile defence project as a “very dangerous threatening initiative”, according to state media reports on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump on May 20 said he had picked a design for the Golden Dome missile defence system and named a leader of the ambitious $175 billion program.

The Golden Dome concept includes space-based missiles that would launch from satellites in orbit to intercept conventional and nuclear missiles launched from Earth.

Primarily seeking to defend against a growing arsenal of conventional and nuclear missiles from US adversaries Russia, China and smaller states such as North Korea and Iran, the Golden Dome plan is a revival of a Cold War-era effort by former US President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as the “Star Wars” program.

‘High-Handed, Arbitrary Practice’

The Golden Dome plan “is a typical product of ‘America first’, the height of self-righteousness, arrogance, high-handed and arbitrary practice, and is an outer space nuclear war scenario”, said the Institute for American Studies of North Korea’s foreign ministry, according to state KCNA news agency.

The aim is for Golden Dome to leverage a network of hundreds of satellites circling the globe with sophisticated sensors and interceptors to knock out incoming enemy missiles after they lift off from countries like China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.

Different Reactions

Russia and China reacted differently to the latest news from Trump. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said it was “seriously concerned” about the project and urged Washington to abandon its development, adding that it carried “strong offensive implications” and heightened the risks of the militarization of outer space and an arms race.

A Kremlin spokesperson said Golden Dome could force talks between Moscow and Washington about nuclear arms control in the foreseeable future.

(With inputs from Reuters)