North Korea on Thursday announced the launch of medium-range missiles on Wednesday was a success and it considered this a necessary weapon to increase the country’s capacity when carrying out a “pre-emptive nuclear attack”.
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The United States and Japan are said to have requested the meeting following discussions with South Korea. Hwasong is Korean for Mars. Deployed for use since 2007, its presence has been a looming threat over Seoul as well as USA forces deployed in the Asia-Pacific region. “We need to stay ahead of the threat”, he told a news conference in Kentucky.
The Security Council, which has imposed five rounds of sanctions on the North, strongly condemned three previous launches on June 1, calling them “a grave violation” of a ban on all ballistic missile activity that contributed to the country’s nuclear weapons program.
North Korea tested two Musudans, one of which flew 400 kilometers into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
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.
That is far enough to reach the U.S. territory and military bases in Guam, though it has never been fully flight tested.
Hua declined to comment on North Korea’s claim that the Wednesday launch was successful. It flew 150 kilometers and broke into pieces in mid-air.
“The test-fire was successfully conducted”, insisted North Korea’s KCNA news agency.
“If North Korea continues testing, eventually its missileers will use the same technology in a missile that can threaten the United States”, he said. Such missiles have to leave the earth’s atmosphere and re-enter it. Analysts say that will be Pyongyang’s attempt to force Washington to negotiate with it.
“Members of the UN Security Council have expressed strong concerns and opposition to North Korea’s recent missile launch”, Francois Delattre, the French ambassador to the UN, said after the meeting was held, Chosun Ilbo reported. At present, experts consider the launch a relative success.
Before the latest launch, Pyongyang had launched four Musudan missiles but all ended in failure. It wasn’t until April 15 this year that Pyongyang started to test its IRBMs since the weapon’s deployment in 2007.
He may have been willing to weather outside mockery for progress on a missile whose development marks a big step toward North Korea’s goal of a comprehensive nuclear and missile program that can deliver atomic bombs and missile strikes to US targets around the world, including, eventually, the USA mainland.
The North is believed to possess up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media.
The February launch, which North Korea said put a satellite into orbit hundreds of kilometres above earth, came just weeks after Pyongyang carried out a nuclear bomb test, both in defiance of United Nations resolutions and sanctions. The UN body, however, failed to adopt a press statement condemning the act. To protect his third-generation family dynasty, he may calculate that he needs to make North Korea appear too unsafe for Washington to try to topple him.
SEOUL, June 22 Images in March of a smiling Kim Jong Un inspecting a silver sphere, purported to be a miniaturised nuclear warhead but likened in the media to a disco ball, burnished the North Korean leader’s global image as deluded and reckless.
Power told reporters as she headed into the council meeting that North Korea’s repeated defiance of global law “underscores how important it is for us to come together to ensure consequences for this inherently destabilizing behavior, and this inherent and consistent and repeated threat to worldwide peace and security”.
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Choe Son-Hui, deputy director-general of the North American affairs bureau in North Korea’s foreign ministry, said in Beijing: “For now, we have no thoughts about taking part in talks for discussing North Korea’s denuclearization”.
