The country’s leader also asked officials and scientists at the Sohae Space Center in the western region, “to round off” the preparations to launch the satellite as soon as possible.
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North Korea has successfully tested a new, high-powered rocket engine, state media said Tuesday, a move Seoul said was created to showcase its progress towards being able to target the U.S. east coast.
China’s Foreign Ministry said relevant departments were investigating Liaoning Hongxiang Group and were following the provisions of United Nations resolution 2270, which imposed tighter sanctions on North Korea in March in response to its fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range missile a month later.
North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, is one of the most risky persons in the world without a doubt, next to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, although I think Putin is a very smart man with sinister motives. It did not give the date of the test, as is customary.
Kim called for his country’s space agency to speed up its technological advancement, despite now struggling to fix the damage caused by North Korea’s worst flood since being established in the wake of World War II. North Korea is developing a missile called Taepodong-2 with a range of about 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers), according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry.
South Korea’s military Joint Chiefs of Staff also said the test was to verify the performance of “a high-power engine that can be used for long-range missiles”.
“This is a single rocket which North Korea says has a thrust of 80 tons of force”, he said.
“It’s one and the same”, said Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute, adding that a rocket engine of that size would represent an upgrade to Iran’s current capabilities.
That is where the country launched a rocket in February, reportedly carrying a satellite. But repeated sanctions imposed over the years have done little to curtail its programs.
North Korea has been testing nuclear devices since 2006, and was hit by five sets of Western sanctions over its actions, but vowed to carry on with the drills. “So we hope all parties can honor the relevant United Nations resolutions”, Lu said.
The United States will temporarily deploy two B-1 strategic bombers to South Korea from Wednesday in another show of force against North Korea’s provocations, local media reported Tuesday.
NorthKorea earlier this month fired three missiles that flew about 1,000 km (600 miles) each and in August tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) that global experts said showed considerable progress.
“The U.S. mainland, Hawaii, Guam, the Pacific military bases of the U.S. imperialist invaders, are all within our striking distance”, read the statement.
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The test was successful, the report said, providing a “firm scientific and technological guarantee” for North Korea’s plan to launch more satellites.
