Leader Kim Jong-Un threatened USA military bases across the Pacific after North Korea’s test of a powerful new missile triggered emergency UN Security Council talks late Wednesday on curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
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When reporters covering South Korea’s Defense Ministry asked Defense Minister Han Min-koo during a luncheon whether the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-ballistic missile system could shoot down a Musudan missile, Han said, “That’s something we will need to confirm”.
In the KCNA report, Mr Kim said North Korea must bolster its pre-emptive nuclear attack capability to cope with threats from the United States and continue the development of strategic weapons systems. The statement issued on Thursday is nearly identical to a condemnation by the council on June 1 over several previous ballistic missile tests by Pyongyang. “We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater”, KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
North Korea, under toughest-yet United Nations sanctions, on Wednesday fired two Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Wonsan, Gangwon off its east coast early Wednesday in its fifth and sixth attempt to test the ballistic missiles.
The Security Council also called on all member states to “redouble their efforts” to implement recent sanctions, which target North Korea’s sales of natural resources and imports of rocket and aviation fuel, and to report on their enforcement efforts “as soon as possible”.
Nato is also calling North Korea to fully comply with its obligations under global law, not to threaten with or conduct any launches using ballistic missile technology.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power signalled that the United States would seek “to identify individual, entities who may be responsible for this repeated series of tests” and could be sanctioned by the Security Council.
The March sanctions reflected growing anger at what Pyongyang claims was its first hydrogen bomb test on January 6 and a rocket launch in defiance of a ban on all nuclear-related activity. The unprecedented flight was dubbed a “success” for North Korea’s missile program by analysts including Melissa Hanham of the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
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The North is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media, which officials said were first deployed around 2007, although the North had never tried to test-fire them until this year.
