In a photo taken on April 13, 2019, DPRK flags are displayed in Pyongyang. (ED JONES / AFP)

SEOUL – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Saturday that the administration of US President Joe Biden had taken a wrong first step and revealed “deep-seated hostility” by criticizing its self-defensive missile test.

The DPRK on Friday said it had launched a new type of tactical short-range ballistic missile. Biden said the test violated UN Security Council resolutions but he remained open to diplomacy with Pyongyang.

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Ri Pyong-chol, secretary of the North’s ruling Worker’s Party’s Central Committee, said the test was self-defensive against threats posed by the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States with their joint military exercises and advanced weapons.

Ri Pyong-chol, secretary of the DPRK’s ruling Worker’s Party’s Central Committee, said Washington might face “something that is not good” if it continues to make “thoughtless remarks”

“We express our deep apprehension over the US chief executive faulting the regular testfire, exercise of our state’s right to self-defense, as the violation of UN ‘resolutions’ and openly revealing his deep-seated hostility,” Ri said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

Biden’s remarks were an “undisguised encroachment on our state’s right to self-defense and provocation,” he said, adding Washington might face “something that is not good” if it continues to make “thoughtless remarks.”

“We are by no means developing weapons to draw someone’s attention or influence his policy,” Ri said.

“I think that the new US administration obviously took its first step wrong.”

He accused the Biden administration of “exploiting every opportunity” to provoke Pyongyang by branding it as a “security threat.”

The DPRK has also slammed the ROK-US military exercises which ended last week.

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Ri said Washington insisted on a “gangster-like logic” to be able to bring strategic nuclear assets to the ROK and test intercontinental ballistic missiles at its convenience, but ban the DPRK from testing even a tactical weapon.

“We know very well what we must do,” he said. “We will continue to increase our most thoroughgoing and overwhelming military power.”

The White House, which said its DPRK policy review was in the “final stages,” declined to comment. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When asked earlier about the launch and whether it would affect the policy review, department spokeswoman Jalina Porter again condemned the test as “destabilizing.”