Kim says no nuke talks
North Korean leader Kim Jong -un vowed Wednesday his nation will “demonstrate its mettle to the U.S.” and never put its weapons programs up for negotiations, a day after successfully testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
The hard line suggests that North Korea will conduct more weapons tests until it perfects nuclear-armed missiles capable of striking anywhere in the United States. Analysts say Kim’s government believes nuclear weapons are key to its survival and could be used to wrest concessions from the United States.
Tuesday’s ICBM launch, confirmed by U.S. and South Korean officials, was a milestone in North Korea’s efforts to develop longrange nuclear-armed missiles. But the North isn’t there yet, and many analysts say it needs more tests to perfect such an arsenal.
South Korea President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday that the world should look at tougher sanctions against the North and insisted the problem must be solved peacefully.
Speaking through an interpreter in Berlin before the Group of 20 summit, Moon called the test “a big threat and provocation” and that there should be consideration of “more intensive possibilities of sanctions.”
Worry also spread in Washington and at the United Nations, where the United States, Japan and South Korea requested an emergency UN Security Council session Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. response would include “stronger measures to hold the DPRK accountable,” using the acronym for the nation’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In a show of force, U.S. and South Korean troops fired “deep strike” precision missiles off South Korea’s east coast Wednesday. South Korea’s military later released previously shot video showing the test-firing of sophisticated South Korean missiles and a computer-generated image depicting a North Korean flag in flames with the backdrop of a major building in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
North Korean state media described leader Kim as “feasting his eyes” on the ICBM, which was said to be capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead, before its launch.
North Korea was also pleased that its test came as Americans celebrated Independence Day. State media said Kim told “scientists and technicians that the U.S. would be displeased to witness the DPRK’s strategic option” on its Independence Day.
Kim also said North Korea “would neither put its nukes and ballistic rockets on the table of negotiations in any case nor flinch even an inch from the road of bolstering the nuclear force chosen by itself unless the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat to the DPRK are definitely terminated,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.
South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it was unable to verify whether North Korea has mastered re-entry technology for an ICBM. It said North Korea may now conduct a nuclear test with “boosted explosive power” to show off a warhead to be mounted on a missile.
The UN Security Council could impose additional sanctions on North Korea, but it’s not clear they would stop it from pursuing its nuclear and missile programs since the country is already under multiple rounds of UN sanctions for its previous weapon tests.
“An attempt to curb Kim Jong -un’s nuclear and missile ambitions has clearly failed. I think North Korea won’t stop its nuclear drive until it feels that it has reached the level that it wants to reach,” said Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University. “I don’t know when North Korea can reach that level. But I would say it’s imminent.”
There is a consensus among many analysts that Kim’s government won’t give up its nuclear program because it believes it guarantee its survival from outside threats. But once it possesses functioning ICBMs, it would also have a stronger bargaining position and might propose talks with the United States on reducing those threats, possibly in exchange for freezing but not dismantling some of its nuclear or missile activities, the analysts say.