North Korea likely has "more in store" after successfully
test-firing its largest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile this week, a
top White House official said Friday.
اضافة اعلان
Thursday's launch was the first time Pyongyang has fired Kim Jong Un's most
powerful missiles at full range since 2017.
It was conducted under Kim's "direct guidance", and ensures his country
is ready for "long-standing confrontation" with the US, state media
outlet KCNA reported Friday.
"We see this as part of a pattern of testing and provocation from North
Korea... we think there is likely more in store," White House National
Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on board Air Force One.
The missile appears to have travelled higher and further than any previous
ICBM tested by the nuclear-armed country -- including one designed to strike
anywhere on the US mainland.
State media photographs showed Kim, wearing his customary black leather
jacket and dark sunglasses, striding across the tarmac in front of a huge
missile, with other images of him cheering and celebrating the test launch with
uniformed military top brass.
- 'Monster missile'
-
Known as the Hwasong-17, the giant ICBM was first unveiled in October 2020
and dubbed a "monster missile" by analysts.
It had never previously been successfully test-fired, and the launch
prompted immediate outrage from Pyongyang's neighbours and the United States.
"The missile, launched at Pyongyang International Airport, travelled up
to a maximum altitude of 6,248.5 km and flew a distance of 1,090 km for 4,052s
before accurately hitting the pre-set area in open waters" in the Sea of
Japan, KCNA said.
South Korea's military had estimated the range of the Thursday launch as
6,200 kilometres (3,900 miles) -- far longer than the last ICBM, the
Hwasong-15, which North Korea tested in November 2017.
The missile landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone, prompting anger from
Tokyo, but KCNA said the test had been carried out "in a vertical launch
mode" to ease neighbours' security concerns.
Following Thursday's test, Washington
imposed new sanctions on entities and people in Russia
and North Korea who are accused of "transferring sensitive items
to North Korea's missile program".
The North is already under biting international sanctions for its weapons
programs, and the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting over the
launch on Friday.
The European Union added to the chorus of condemnation on Friday.
"This is a violation of multiple United Nations Security Council
Resolutions and a serious threat to international and regional peace and
security," the bloc said in a statement, calling on Pyongyang to
"refrain from any further action that could increase international or
regional tensions".
- 'Important
progress' -
The test is a clear sign North Korea has made "important qualitative
progress" on its banned weapons programmes, said US-based analyst Ankit
Panda.
"What's important about this ICBM is not how far it can go, but what it
can potentially carry, which is multiple warheads," something North Korea
has long coveted, he told AFP.
"The North Koreans are on the cusp of significantly increasing the
threat to the United States beyond the ICBM capability demonstrated in
2017."
Multiple warheads would help a North Korean missile evade US missile defence
systems.
The North had carried out three ICBM tests prior to Thursday, the last being
the Hwasong-15 in 2017.
Long-range and nuclear tests were paused when Kim and then US president
Donald Trump engaged in a bout of diplomacy which collapsed in 2019. Talks have
since stalled.
Thursday's launch, one of nearly a dozen North Korean weapons tests this
year, marked a dramatic return to long-range testing.
It came just days after one last week, likely also of the Hwasong-17,
failed, exploding after launch.
- Compensation -
"This test also appears to 'compensate' for last week's failed
projectile launch -- handsomely so," Soo Kim, RAND Corporation Policy
Analyst and former CIA analyst, told AFP.
"The regime appears quite pleased with the outcome of the test,"
she added.
The country's new ICBM launch comes at a delicate time for the region, with
South Korea going through a presidential transition until May, and the US
distracted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried a photograph of a haggard-looking
Kim signing papers at his desk, with an image of a handwritten "I approve
the test launch" scrawled over a report.
"Kim Jong Un wants to ultimately establish himself as a leader who has
successfully developed both nuclear weapons and ICBMs," Ahn Chan-il, a
North Korean studies scholar, told AFP.
"He is almost desperate as without such military achievements, he
really hasn't done much," he added, pointing to the isolated country's
Covid- and sanctions-battered economy.
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