North Korea: Rocket launches are sovereign right

North Korea on Sunday again defended its recent short-range rocket launches, saying it is exercising its sovereign rights.
The communist nation test-fired two projectiles into the East Sea on Wednesday, one day before Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Seoul. It also launched what appeared to be two Scud-class missiles last Sunday and three short-range rockets on June 26, according to South Korea's (Yonhap) News Agency.
"It is the inviolable legitimate exercise of the sovereignty that the DPRK has bolstered up its deterrence force for self-defense to defend the security and peace of the country and firmly safeguard the gains of the revolution," said the North's mouthpiece newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
The paper accused the United States of employing "gangster-like logic" in calling the rocket launches a provocation when "it is not a provocation and threat that the US develops and tests latest weapons in a bid to invade other countries." "No matter what other may say, the DPRK will as ever exercise its justifiable right to self defense" against the moves by the US and to develop its rocket science and technology, the paper said, according to Yonhap.