North Korea has stepped up its nuclear programme as it claims to have miniaturized nuclear warheads.
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Pyongyang threatened to launch nuclear strikes on the United States and South Korea this week, as the two countries started their annual joint military drills.
According to state run media, Kim wants to assess the power of newly developed nuclear warheads. “This proves why the global sanctions on North Korea are necessary…The government is maintaining full readiness to immediately respond to any provocations by North Korea”, Jeong Joon-hee, South Korea’s unification ministry spokesman, said at a press briefing.
According to KCNA, Thursday’s launch of two short-range ballistic missiles, which traversed the eastern part of the country before falling into the East Sea (Sea of Japan), was part of a nuclear strike exercise.
Tensions have risen sharply on the Korean peninsula after the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and fired a long-range rocket last month, spurring the UN Security Council to adopt a new sanctions resolution.
It came hours after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un said his military had successfully miniaturised nuclear warheads which can be mounted on ballistic missiles.
The exercise was clearly a response to ongoing large-scale, South Korea-US military drills that Pyongyang views as provocative rehearsals for invasion. It said North Korea would also impose “lethal” military, political and economic blows on the South Korean Government to accelerate its “pitiable demise ” .
The KCNA reported that Kim underscored the need to further develop nuclear weapons in order to prepare “to make nuclear strikes at the enemies from anywhere on the ground, in the air, at sea and underwater”. South Korea blacklisted Mariner’s Shipping & Trading from Thailand and Royal Team Corporation from Taiwan, says Reuters.
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Pyongyang to “cease destabilising acts, ‘ adding that he remained ‘gravely concerned” by the situation. The North has conducted a number of what is says were successful tests of a submarine launched ballistic missile.
