BEIJING (Kyodo) --^ North Korea warned Thursday that Japan's possible deployment of long-range missiles on the southwestern island of Kyushu would make the Japanese archipelago a "common target" for regional countries.

Japanese government sources said last week that Tokyo is considering deploying the missiles starting around March 2026 as part of efforts to acquire "counterstrike capabilities" to hit enemy targets in an emergency. Deployment in Kyushu would put North Korea and China's coastal areas within range.

The policy section chief of the Institute for Japan Studies under the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency that Japan's attempt to possess preemptive attack capability is a "dangerous provocation that will bring about constant escalation" of tensions in Northeast Asia.

North Korea justified its efforts to strengthen its defense capabilities, calling them indispensable to containing "the provocations of enemy countries" and maintaining "the strategic balance and stability in the region," according to the statement.