North Korea's Kim blames US for tensions

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has blamed the United States for tensions on the peninsula and accused the South of hypocrisy, state media reported Tuesday, as he opened an exhibition showcasing his nuclear-armed country's weapons.
The "wrong judgment and acts" of the US meant instability could not be resolved, he said in an address to the "Self-Defense 2021" display, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, which have made rapid progress under Kim.
In 2017, it tested missiles that can reach the whole of the continental United States and carried out its most powerful nuclear explosion to date. Pyongyang says it needs its arsenal to protect itself against a US invasion.
Pictures carried by state media showed Kim at the exhibition in front of the gigantic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) revealed at a night-time military parade last year.
He was also shown sitting smoking with senior officials and officers, with huge photo portraits of the leader in military uniform hung in the exhibition hall.
His address came after North Korea in recent weeks tested a long-range cruise missile, a train-launched weapon, and what it said was a hypersonic warhead.