“The drill was conducted by limiting the firing range under the simulated conditions of making pre-emptive strikes at ports and airfields in the operational theatre in South Korea where the U.S. imperialists’ nuclear war hardware is to be hurled”.
Advertisement
Han Min-koo, the South’s defense minister, told lawmakers in an emergency session held Tuesday afternoon that North Korea’s missiles constituted a “sort of protest” against the planned THAAD deployment.
“Should North Korea engage in provocations, (South Korea’s military) should not hesitate and must show determination to stamp out those that undertake an attack”, Joint Chief of Staff chief General Lee Sun-jin said at the meeting.
The Rodong has an estimated range of up to 1,300 km, making it capable of reaching as far as Japan, and North Korea’s explanation of “limiting the firing range” was apparently referring to the test of the medium-range missile.
The exercise was seen as a response to a decision by South Korea and the USA to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter the threat from Pyongyang. There are still about 28,500 American troops stationed in the southern part of the Korean peninsula as a result of the 1950-1953 Korean War. Although the paper didn’t specify when or where the photos were taken, as is custom in North Korea, the Tuesday launches were believed to have been conducted in Hwangju County, North Hwanghae Province.
The Seoul government has persistently said that it has no intention of joining the MD system and that it wants to build up its own “Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD)” system to deal with evolving North Korean missile and nuclear threats. “Under these circumstances the deployment of a THAAD battery that can improve our missile interception capabilities is a significant step”.
“It examined the operational features of the detonating devices of nuclear warheads mounted on ballistic rockets at the designated altitude over the target area”. Most of the six intermediate-range Musudan missile tests carried out in recent months have been failures.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un watches the trajectory of a missile on a monitor during a trip to the Hwasong artillery unit of the North Korean Army’s Strategic Force in a photo carried by the state-run daily Rodong Sinmun Wednesday.
Advertisement
Despite North Korea’s boasts, there is considerable doubt about whether North Korea has mastered the next, hard steps: making nuclear warheads small enough to mount on a missile, and then being able to deliver it.
