Kim out to match US in nuclear arms race

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-un says his country is nearing its goal of “equilibrium” in military force with the United States.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency carried Mr Kim’s comments on Saturday – a day after US and South Korean militaries detected the missile launch from Pyongyang.

It travelled 3700km as it passed over the Japanese island of Hokkaido before landing in the northern Pacific Ocean. It was the country’s longest-ever test flight of a ballistic missile.

The increasingly frequent and aggressive tests have added to fears that the North is closer than ever to building a military arsenal that could viably target the US and its allies in Asia.

The news agency said Mr Kim expressed great satisfaction over the launch, which he said verified the “combat efficiency and reliability” of the missile and the success of efforts to increase its power.

He vowed to complete his nuclear weapons program in the face of strengthening international sanctions, the agency said.

He said all future drills should be “meaningful and practical ones for increasing the combat power of the nuclear force” to establish an order in the deployment of nuclear warheads for “actual war”.