North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said early today that his country had achieved the “success of all successes” in launching a missile from a submarine, saying it essentially gave the country full nuclear-attack capability and put the USA mainland within striking distance.
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“A test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile was successfully conducted under the guidance of supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army Kim Jong Un”, the North’s official KCNA news agency said.
The news agency quoted Kim as saying the successful test showed that North Korea had joined the “front ranks” of military powers fully equipped with nuclear-attack capabilities. DPRK is an acronym of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name. On the left, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hugs one of the research scientists who developed the SLBM.
Any “rash acts” by the USA and its allies will “only precipitate their self-destruction”, he added.
North Korea said this year it had miniaturized a nuclear warhead to fit on a ballistic missile.
A test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile is seen in this undated photo.
The Korean Central Television also aired a 107-second footage of the launch, featuring the missile soaring into the air from the water, with a thundering noise, from various angles, as well as some other 60 related images.
Kim said the purported missile launch “was a great manifestation and demonstration of the tremendous power and inexhaustible muscle” of North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency said Thursday.
Considering that the North only publicizes missile launches that have succeeded, the North’s wide coverage of Wednesday launch shows Pyongyang’s satisfaction with the test, an assessment shared by military experts.
China said on Wednesday that it opposes the North’s nuclear and missile programmes. This missile flew for 500 km, which is a considerable performance considering that the Scud-B surface-to-surface ballistic missile has a range of 300 km.
Japan confirmed the missile reached its air defence identification zone – a first for a North Korean missile. The KCNA reported that the test was conducted “under a high-angle fire system in the maximum launching depth”, which it said “reconfirmed the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system”. “But apparently, to show off that it was capable of sending it farther, the North seemed to have put the missile at a higher angle and therefore reduced its range (to 500 kilometers) intentionally”. Such missiles have to leave the earth’s atmosphere and re-enter it.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House held an urgent national security council standing committee meeting on Wednesday to discuss next steps.
Malaysia’s U.N. Ambassador Ramlan Bin Ibrahim, the current council president, told reporters after the closed meeting that “there was a general sense of condemnation by most members of the council”. Amid the increasing likelihood of North Korea’s SLBMs becoming a real threat, the controversy about the military efficacy of deploying THAAD with United States forces in South Korea is expected to be reignited.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the North Korean provocation an “unforgivable act” in “apparent defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions”. The most recent KN-11 launches – three in the previous year – were all deemed failures because the missiles exploded at launch or traveled only a short distance.
