North Korean state media reported Mr Kim saying his country now has the sure capability to attack the Americans in the Pacific.
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The test launches have triggered serious concerns in the US, Japan and South Korea, as the missile’s potential range of 3,500km (2,180 miles), puts significant areas of Asia and the Pacific, including US military bases in Guam, within firing range. The South Korean military, however, believes Pyongyang has yet to attain the rocket re-entry technology needed for a ballistic missile launch.
The UN security council held an emergency meeting after the launches and the USA ambassador, Samantha Power, called for “urgent and united condemnation”.
The latest launches come a week before the North convenes its rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, and could be hailed as a key achievement of leader Kim Jong-un following the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and February’s long-range rocket launch. During a biannual meeting at Seoul’s defense ministry on Thursday, South Korea’s chief commanders said it’s too early to call the launch a complete success and said further analysis is needed to make an exact assessment.
A second was test-fired hours later in the direction of Japan and reached a high altitude before it fell into the sea around 400 km away, according to the North’s KCNA news agency.
The launches appear to stem from Kim’s order in March for more nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
The missile, which is fired from mobile launchers, has a design range of more than 3000km, meaning all of Japan and the USA territory of Guam are potentially within reach.
According to Lamek, the United Nations Security Council is considering a press statement that is to be a tough signal to the North Korean regime.
Jeffrey Lewis, a North Korea watcher and nonproliferation expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, notes that “If we do nothing, this ends in a successful flight test of the Musudan-based KN-08 (ICBM)”.
Susan Shirk, a former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and an organiser of the security forum in Beijing, said she did not expect the six-party talks to be resumed any time soon.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea endured global humiliation with five failed launches in about two months before it finally pulled off what appears to be a successful test of a powerful new midrange missile.
North and South Korea remain technically in a state of war after the 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty.
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“It’s highly probable that North Korea equipped the Musudan with a new engine or conducted a heat-resistance test on its warhead to avoid another failure”, a military source here speculated.
