He praised scientists and technicians and said the United States and its “operational theater in the Pacific” are now within North Korea’s “striking range”, according to KCNA’s report Thursday.
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Japan said the missile reached its air defence identification zone (ADIZ), the first time for a North Korean missile.
Since the North’s leader took office in late 2011, North Korea has test-fired more than 30 ballistic missiles, including an intermediate-range Musudan missile, which theoretically can fly as far as the US territory of Guam.
The launch comes two days after rival South Korea and the United States began annual military exercises in the South that North Korea condemns as a preparation for invasion, and has threatened retaliation. While the diplomats from Tokyo and Seoul forcefully condemned Pyongyang’s actions, Beijing’s Foreign minister Wang Yi concentrated on cultivating wider cooperation.
A test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile is seen in this undated photo.
The news agency said the test was aimed at evaluating the stability of the underwater launching system, the flight features of the solid-fuel missile, the reliability of the control and guidance system, and the accuracy of the warhead in hitting targets after it re-enters the atmosphere. It flew 500 kilometers (around 300 miles) towards Japan, far exceeding any previous sub-launched tests. In an article that was published on North Korea-affairs website 38 North two days after North Korea’s SLBM test launch on April. 23, John Schilling, an American expert on missiles, predicted that North Korea’s SLBM would become a legitimate threat in 2020.
North Korea test-fired the missile at around 5:30 am (0830 GMT) near the coastal city of Sinpo, where satellite imagery shows a submarine base to be located, an official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Takesada said North Korea needs to have at least four SLBM-armed submarines to successfully deploy SLBMs. “I think this progress is faster than most people have expected”, said security analyst Daniel Pinkston with Troy University in Seoul.
Joshua Pollack, editor of the US -based Nonproliferation Review, noted that only six countries including the United States, Russia and China have mastered SLBM technology.
The United Nations previously imposed sanctions on North Korea for three tests it carried out in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared a submarine-launched missile test the “greatest success”, state media said Thursday, as the UN weighed a condemnation of the launch which appears to advance Pyongyang’s nuclear strike capability. The SLBMs that North Korea tested on April 23 and July 9 only flew about 30 km and 10 km, respectively. “The most they could do is probably launch guerilla-like attacks for now”, he said.
Kim Jong Un’s comments were full of North Korea’s trademark hyperbole, but the facts on the ground are increasingly giving the erratic leader something to brag about.
The U.S. said it and Japan have requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the missile launch.
The missile was sacked from a submarine submerged off the northeastern port of Sinpo on Wednesday, according to South Korea’s military. It also marked the third SLBM test launch this year.
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. North Korea usually responds to the regular South Korea-U.S. military drills with weapons tests and fiery warlike rhetoric.
The North has claimed success in four major weapons tests, from an alleged hydrogen bomb in January to the Kwangmyongsong-4 space rocket in February, the mid-range Hwasong-10 missile in June and the SLBM.
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The Security Council was unable to condemn the launch of a missile by North Korea earlier this month that landed near Japan because China wanted the statement to oppose the planned deployment of a US anti-missile defense system in South Korea.
