North Korea criticises US missile defence plan

North Korea criticized a U.S. plan to expand its missile defense radar system on Friday, rejecting a U.S. claim that better radar capability is needed to ward off missile threats from Pyongyang. According to a recent report from a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency under the Defense Department has requested a budget of US$75 million to deploy long-range radar in response to ballistic missile threats from North Korea. North Korea denounced the radar plan in a commentary carried by its state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), rejecting what it said was "the possibility of attacks on the (U.S) mainland" by Pyongyang. The radar expansion plan is only a pretext for Washington's broader strategy to become a military hegemony, the commentary said. "The possibility of mainland attacks by our missiles, much advertised by the U.S., is only sophistry for their attempts to justify the missile defense system and to tighten their military hegemony over the Asia-Pacific region," read the report. North Korea is in possession of a variety of missiles, but it has never fired a shot at a foreign country that does not disturb them, the report said, calling the North "a pacifist nation."    Some experts said that the North is close to or has finished its development of long-range missiles that can reach U.S. territories closer to the Asian region