North Korea slams Japan for seeking to revise pacifist constitution

A visitor views a dramatic nationalist painting at the National New Fine Art Talents Exhibition at the Okryu Exhibition Hall in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 11. AP-Yonhap

North Korea condemned Japan on Wednesday for pushing to revise its pacifist constitution, calling the move a "declaration of war against humankind."

The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made the criticism as Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga mentioned the need to discuss the possible revision of its war-renouncing constitution earlier this month to officially recognize its self-defense forces by the law.

"Japan has made desperate efforts to turn itself, which renounced war, into a war-capable country, remaining unchanged in its wild ambition for launching reinvasion to avenge the past defeat," KCNA said in a commentary.

Calling the move "a frontal challenge to global peace and an open declaration of war against humankind," the North said it will "bring irreversible disasters to the world." (Yonhap)