Pyongyang: Arms dealing with Russia rumors, US attempt to tarnish North Korea image

North Korea has roundly rejected a claim by the United States that Pyongyang is supplying Russia with artillery ammunition to be used in Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine.

"Recently, the US is persistently spreading a groundless 'rumor of arms dealings' between the DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and Russia," North Korea's vice director of military foreign affairs of the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on Tuesday.

The statement that was being carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said Pyongyang considered such rumors to be part of the US' "hostile attempt to tarnish the image of the DPRK in the international arena."

"We once again make clear that we have never had 'arms dealings' with Russia and that we have no plan to do so in the future," the statement concluded.

This came after the White House's national security spokesman John Kirby claimed last week that the purported ammunition consignments from North Korea to Russia were coming under the cover of shipments to the Middle East or Africa.

South Korea, US warplanes begin large-scale joint aerial drills amid tensions with N. Korea

US and South Korea begin one of their largest joint aerial war games with hundreds of warplanes staging mock attacks 24-hours-a-day.

"UN chief's missile launch statement 'unfair'"

In a separate development, the North denounced UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for condemning Pyongyang's recent missile launches and urging it to "immediately desist from taking any further provocative action."

"I think that the unfair and prejudiced behavior of the UN secretary general is to blame to some extent for the situation on the Korean Peninsula getting so serious," North Korea's vice foreign minister for international organizations said in a statement that was carried by the KCNA.

The Korean official described the missile launches as "just counteraction for self-defense to cope with the US military provocations."

Last week, Pyongyang staged a number of back-to-back missile tests, including a reported intercontinental ballistic missile, as the United States and South Korea were conducting massive air force exercises.

North Korea exercises striking US, South Korean targets

North Korea says it responded to the South and the US

The six-day war games, which were codenamed Vigilant Storm, ended on Saturday. They featured nearly 240 warplanes conducting about 1,600 sorties. The US Air Force has boasted that the exercises were unprecedented in their sheer scale.

The North's military said on Monday that the exercises were an "open provocation aimed at intentionally escalating the tension" and "a dangerous war drill of very high aggressive nature."

Pyongyang added that it responded to the South and the United States' war games by exercising striking key enemy targets.

The North Korean military also said it had even drilled hitting a major South Korean city to "smash the enemies' persistent war hysteria."

It confirmed firing two apparently nuclear-capable "strategic" cruise missiles on November 2 toward the waters off Ulsan, the southeastern coastal city housing a nuclear power plant and large factory parks.

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