North Korea said it successfully launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of hitting USA military operations in the Pacific, prompting the U.S.to call on the United Nations Security Council to take action on the isolated nation.
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South Korea’s military said on Wednesday that another launch of the North Korean ballistic missile Musudan with the range of up to 4,000 km was unsuccessful.
Mr Kim was speaking after twin tests on Wednesday of the Hwasong-10 missile, known internationally as the Musudan.
The launch in February, which North Korea said put a satellite into orbit, came just weeks after Pyongyang carried out a nuclear bomb test. Both moves were in defiance of United Nations resolutions and sanctions.
“(Kim Jong Un) is interested in being the leader of North Korea who has been able to create a deliverable nuclear weapon, and clearly they’re counting on this intermediate range Musudan missile to do that”, Christopher Hill, the former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, told CNN.
Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said the launch was an indication that North Korea’s threat to Japan was intensifying. To protect his third-generation family dynasty, he may calculate that he needs to make North Korea appear too unsafe for Washington to try to topple him.
Military officials confirmed that the missile was launched at a sharper angle, but declined to comment on what happened to the missile.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: “The impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the worldwide community that has such serious concerns with North Korea’s behaviour”.
The first was launched at about 5:58 a.m. Seoul time (2058 GMT Tuesday), but it appeared to have failed as the missile flew in an abnormal trajectory in a distance short of what a normal ballistic missile can fly.
“As long as North Korea continues to defy the non-proliferation regime, we, the whole world, should remind North Korea that its misbehavior will have unbearable costs”, Yun said.
Any further measures would require the support of veto-wielding permanent council member China, traditionally the North’s closest ally. This means that North Korea could not strike Guam or Okinawa, which host the bases where the U.S. would gather its strategic assets before deploying them to the Korean Peninsula in the event of a crisis.
The North is believed to possess up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media. The definition of success in missile testing can be somewhat subjective; North Korea gets to decide the parameters it was looking to accomplish and it looks like Kim Jong-un is satisfied with the 1,000 kilometer apogee and the 400 kilometer range accomplishments.
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South Korean authorities recovered the other half.
