North Korea vowed to take “strategic counteraction” against an expanding United Nations Command (UNC) on Friday, days after members of the multinational military force condemned DPRK-Russia arms trade.

In a statement on Friday, Pyongyang’s foreign ministry denounced a meeting of UNC member states’ defense chiefs on Tuesday as an “anti-DPRK confrontation confab,” while calling efforts to expand membership a prelude to the establishment of “NATO of Asian version.”

“The DPRK will steadily take a new strategic counteraction to contain and frustrate the reckless confrontation moves of the hostile forces to disturb peace and stability in the Korean peninsula