N Korea finalising plan to fire missile near Guam over Japan
North Korea said on Thursday it was completing plans to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near the US Pacific island territory of Guam in an unusually detailed threat that further heightened tensions with the United States.
The intermediate-range missiles would be fired east and over Japan before landing around 30 to 40 kilometers (18 to 25 miles) off the coast of the tiny island if the plan is implemented, according to state-run KCNA. Guam is more than 3,000 kilometers from North Korea.
The plan is the latest provocation in a back-and-forth with Washington, which came to a boil on Tuesday when US President Donald Trump appeared to threaten nuclear war on the pariah state. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump said. “They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
The North Korean threat has been on the Trump administration’s foreignpolicy agenda since the President took office in January, but it has taken center stage since Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month that it says are capable of hitting the US mainland.
North Korea responded to Trump’s comments through a state media report, criticizing the US President for having “let out a load of nonsense about ‘fire and fury,’” and accused him of “failing to grasp the on-going grave situation.”
The report states that “sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him.” North Korea has also slammed US and UN sanctions placed on the country over its recent increase in missile testing, and has used those measures to justify its renewed aggressiveness.
The sudden escalation in tensions in the past week came after US intelligence analysts assessed that North Korea had produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead, according to multiple sources familiar with the analysis of North Korea’s missile and nuclear program.
Such a development would mean North Korea is a step closer to having the capability of striking the US with a nuclear-tipped missile.
There is no indication that the Hwasong-12 missiles mentioned in the Guam plan would be tipped with nuclear warheads. The White House was accused of sending mixed messages on its North Korea stance, with Trump’s fiery comments juxtaposed with US State Secretary Rex Tillerson’s more diplomatic approach, which focused on dialogue.
But those messages are beginning to converge. Tillerson on Wednesday backed Trump’s comment while trying to allay fears that a military confrontation was imminent. And US Defense Secretary James Mattis on Wednesday also supported Trump’s controversial remarks.
“The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people,” Mattis said in a statement Wednesday, using an acronym for North Korea. Trump’s comments have been slammed as incendiary by his political opposition as well as some foreign powers, but have been supported by others.
The KCNA report includes detailed provisional plans to launch four rockets “above Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi Prefectures of Japan,” and specified they would fly 3,356 kilometers (2,000 miles) for 1,065 seconds as a “crucial warning to the US.” Following that flight path, the missiles would also have to travel over the Japanese prefecture of Ehime.
North Korea’s estimated splashdown of the missiles would place them just outside Guam’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters, but well within its 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
The Korean People’s Army Strategic Force will present the final plan for the launch to Kim by mid-august and “wait for his order,” the report said.
Should Kim give the go-ahead, it would not be the first time a North Korean rocket has crossed over Japanese teoff Guam A South Korean military official says that there have been no indications that Pyongyang is readying a strike.
“Currently, there is no unusual movement related to a direct provocation,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Roh Jae-cheon said in a press briefing.
Some analysts do not think that Kim will follow through on this very specific threat against the US territory.
North Korea is “trying to ratchet up the threat to create political pressure in the US and elsewhere to get talks,” says Carl Schuster, a Hawaii Pacific University professor and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.
“They’ve noticed that we’ve never sought conflict with an adversary who can hit our territory (and they) hope that this (threat) will force a more diplomatic line.”