NORTH KOREA VOWS EVEN MORE MISSILE TEST ‘GIFTS’ FOR US

Supreme leader Kim Jongun says country’s nukes not on the negotiating table

Grinning broadly, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un delighted in the global furore created by his nation’s first launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, vowing on Wednesday to never abandon nuclear weapons and to keep sending Washington more “gift packages” of missile and atomic tests.

Kim vowed his nation would “demonstrate its mettle to the US” and never negotiate its weapons programmes after watching the test-launch.

The hard line suggests that more tests are being prepared as North Korea tries to perfect a nuclear missile capable of striking anywhere in the US.

Tuesday’s ICBM launch, confirmed later by US and South Korean officials, is a milestone in Pyongyang’s efforts to develop long-range nuclear-armed missiles.

The ensuing uproar only seemed to inspire the North’s rhetoric in official media.

The North was also pleased that its test came as Americans celebrated its independence day. Kim, the state media report said, told “scientists and technicians that the US would be displeased to witness the DPRK’s strategic option as it was given a ‘package of gifts’ incurring its disfavour by the DPRK on its ‘Independence Day.’”

The North has a history of conducting weapons test on or around July 4.

Kim reportedly “stressed that the protracted showdown with the US imperialists has reached its final phase and it is the time for the DPRK to demonstrate its mettle to the US, which is testing its will in defiance of its warning.”

The test, North Korea’s most successful yet, is a direct rebuke to US President Donald Trump’s earlier declaration that such a test “won’t happen!”

North Korea’s Academy of Defence Science, in a bit of hyperbole, said the test of what it called the Hwasong-14 marked the “final step” in creating a “confident and powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on Earth.”