According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the two missiles were fired around 5:20 a.m. Thursday morning (Seoul time) from North Hwanghae Province and hit waters northeast of the port city of Wonsan.
Advertisement
North Korea responded by threatening nuclear strikes on South Korea and the USA mainland.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un said that North Korean scientists have miniaturized nuclear warheads in what is a “true nuclear deterrent” for the isolated country.
Rodong Sinmun, official daily of the North’s ruling party, carried photos of the leader in what appeared to be a large hangar speaking to aides and standing in front of a silver spherical object.
The statement by a spokesman for the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Korea said the plan was made in response to a series of unilateral sanctions by Seoul on North Korea after the UN Security Council voted to adopt a tough resolution against Pyongyang.
Pyongyang has long boasted about its nuclear ambitions, about as long as South Korea and the United States have sought to derail them.
Kim is set to hold talks with U.S. Special Representative for North Korean Policy Sung Kim on Friday morning in Washington.
The exercises were also condemned by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said they only serve to escalate the situation on the Peninsula.
The commander of US forces in South Korea told the media in 2014 that he believed North Korea had the ability to miniaturize a nuclear device. The KN-08, which North Korea showed off in 2012, is said to be capable of being launched from a road-mobile vehicle, which would make it hard to monitor via satellite.
Also shown in the photos is a KN-08 ballistic missile or its model, which reportedly has an estimated range of 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), according to South Korean analysts.
Advertisement
Those sanctions were imposed as a direct result of the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and last month’s space rocket launch, which was seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
