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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea denied on Friday its weapons were used by Hamas in the attack against Israel, saying the claim made in some media reports was a bid by Washington to divert the blame for the conflict from itself to a third country.
Radio Free Asia reported this week citing military experts that Hamas militants may be using North Korean weapons and said footage of Palestinian fighters showed what appeared to be a rocket launcher suspected to be from the North.
U.S. government-owned Voice of America also cited an intelligence expert as saying some of the weapons used by Hamas likely originated from North Korea.
"The U.S. administration's reptile press bodies and quasi-experts are spreading a groundless and false rumour that 'north Korea's weapons' seemed to be used for the attack on Israel," the North's official KCNA news agency said.
"It is nothing but a bid to shift the blame for the Middle East crisis caused by its wrong hegemonic policy onto a third country and thus evade the international criticism focused on the empire of evil," it said.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Thursday said he could not confirm the reports about the source of the rockets being used by Hamas.
The United States' security strategy elsewhere in the world including the Korean peninsula will not be affected by the Israel-Hamas crisis, Kirby added.
North Korea's state media earlier this week blamed Israel for causing bloodshed in Gaza.
North Korea routinely blames the United States for pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war.
The Israeli conflict has emerged as another "huge strategic burden" for Washington in addition to the Ukrainian crisis, KCNA said, and showed the limitations of the U.S. strategy for hegemony and its goal of becoming the sole global superpower.
The latest Israel-Palestinian conflict began on the weekend with a surprise attack by Hamas, the deadliest by Palestinian militants in Israeli history.
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Michael Perry)
