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.
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People watch a TV news program showing an image published Thursday in North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at the Seoul Railway station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016. On a political level, the test is also thought to register North Korea’s opposition to the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian joint exercises that the South Korean and U.S. militaries are conducting between August 24 and Sep. 2.
“There were many people who said North Korea will never achieve its nuclear goals”, said Moon Keun-sik, an analyst at the Korea Defense and Security Forum.
The foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and even China, North Korea’s main ally, said after a meeting in Tokyo that the launch was “totally unacceptable”. It was the longest flight among any known North Korean test-firings of SLBM.
A USA think tank that monitors military activity in the communist country said the North still faces significant technological challenges in its SLBM program, including building a new class of submarine to carry the missile.
North Korea already has a variety of land-based missiles that can hit South Korea and Japan, including US military bases in those countries.
North Korean strategists believe that developing nuclear weapons and a reliable arsenal of long-range missiles is necessary and, in the end, a more cost-effective means of keeping Washington at bay and the ruling regime secure than maintaining a large conventional army.
Kim saw the launch first hand, KCNA reported, although it was not clear where his alleged observation post was.
Kim said the test-firing has proved the DPRK “joined the front rack of the military powers fully equipped with nuclear attack capability” and that the US mainland and military bases in the Asia Pacific are now within the striking range of the DPRK’s military.
Kim is quoted as saying USA bases in the Asia-Pacific region and the US mainland are “now within the striking range” of its armed forces.
“The core technical indexes of the ballistic missile including the reliability of the phased heat separation and the control and guidance system and the working accuracy of the warhead in the re- entry section perfectly met all requirements for operation”, it added.
The missile was sacked off the east coast of North Korea at 5.30am local time and landed in waters inside Japan’s air defence identification zone. Beijing warned against the USA move at recent U.N. Security Council talks.
The U.N. Security Council agreed at an emergency meeting late Wednesday to consider issuing a statement on the latest North Korean missile launch.
The Security Council will hold closed consultations later today on this matter.
He said the United States is drafting the text of a press statement “and we will have a look at it”.
Yun of South Korea said that the repeated missile tests conducted by North Korea this year demonstrated a rapid advancement of capability and that he shared the concern over the urgent situation with his counterparts.
Kim Jong-un has declared North Korea’s latest missile launch “the greatest success”.
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KCNA also reported the launch demonstrated significant military progress and that the missile was sacked at the highest angle for testing purposes.
