North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said after supervising the test launch of an intermediate-range missile that the nation now has the capability to attack US interests in the Pacific, official media reported yesterday.
South Korean and US military officials have said that the North launched what appeared to be two intermediate-range missiles dubbed Musudan on Wednesday. The first of the two was considered a failure.
The second reached a high altitude in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea about 400km away, they said.
Photo: Reuters
“We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying.
The missile, which is fired from mobile launchers, has a design range of more than 3,000km, meaning that all of Japan and the US territory of Guam are potentially within reach.
South Korean military spokesman Jeon Ha-gyu said the second launch demonstrated “technical progress in terms of its engine capacity.”
However, Jeon said it would not be meaningful to discuss whether it was a success, because it was not a normal flight.
Japan and South Korea said the missile flew to a height of 1,000km.
Experts said it appeared that North Korea had deliberately raised the angle of the launch to avoid hitting any Japanese territory.
The UN Security Council met at the request of the US and Japan.
“All expressed a strong concern, as well as their opposition [to] these launches,” French Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Alexis Lamek told reporters.
Lamek said he hoped a statement condemning the move could be agreed on soon.
France holds the council’s presidency for this month.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launches as a “brazen and irresponsible act.”
In other developments, Japan began to examine the suspected nose cone of a North Korean rocket that washed up on a local beach.
The red, white and blue item, believed to be half of the nose cone designed to protect the rocket’s payload, was found on a beach in western Japan on Thursday last week and is suspected to have come from a long-range, three-stage rocket fired by North Korea on Feb. 7 that flew over Japan’s southwest Okinawa island chain.
South Korean authorities recovered the other half.
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