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TOKYO: North Korea claims that the United States “has been frantically moving to militarize space” and its planned “Golden Dome” missile defense system is part of a space-based military infrastructure that is not defensive but “a space nuclear war scenario.”

The Institute for American Studies of North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a memorandum on Monday stating that America’s planned missile defense system will be “an extremely dangerous initiative of intimidation aimed at threatening the strategic security of nuclear-armed countries hostile to the United States.”

The memorandum described the plan as “the height of self-righteousness, arrogance, power-shaking and tyranny,” calling it “a microcosm of the true nature of America’s criminal past actions that have plunged the entire world into the nightmare of the outbreak of nuclear war.”

“The military strategic goal pursued by the United States is to justify its hegemonic expansion of space arms, and by accelerating and completing the militarization of space under the guise of ‘homeland defense’ to pre-emptively seize military superiority and use that power to launch military attacks against enemy countries at will.”

The North says the plan will turn space into a battlefield for nuclear war and refers to America’s unmanned X-37B spacecraft as a sign that the US is turning space into a potential war zone. “The emergence of the X-37B is an unpleasant reminder to humanity of the real possibility of space war,” the memorandum said.

The North says the US has established space forces in South Korea and Japan and the three countries are coordinating on areal-time missile information sharing system to target missile launches by North Korea.

“The US plan to build an integrated missile defense system is an extremely dangerous military gamble born out of the tyrannical, ruthless and selfish nature of a colonial power that seeks to use the country as a sacrificial shield to realize its own interests even at the expense of the safety of its subordinate countries.”

The memorandum emphasized that the global security environment can only be guaranteed “by a unique and powerful force that can reliably suppress not only current, but also future challenges.”