N. Korea fires missile over Japan
Latest test flight was Pyongyang’s furthest-ever
North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific on Friday, responding to new UN sanctions with its furthest-ever missile flight in what analysts called a demonstration of its ability to target Guam.
The launch, from near Pyongyang, came after the United Nations Security Council imposed an eighth set of measures on the isolated country following its sixth nuclear test earlier in September.
The blast was by far its largest to date and Pyongyang said it was a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit onto a missile.
In New York, the Security Council called an emergency meeting for later Friday and UN chief Antonio Guterres said talks on the crisis would be held on the sidelines of the General Assembly next week.
The US Pacific Command confirmed Friday’s rocket was an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) and said that it did not pose a threat to North America or to the US Pacific territory of Guam, which Pyongyang has threatened to bracket with “enveloping fire”.
Seoul’s defence ministry
The launch, from near Pyongyang, came after the UN Security Council imposed an eighth set of measures on the isolated country following its sixth nuclear test earlier this month
said it probably travelled around 3,700 kilometres and reached a maximum altitude of 770 kilometres.
It was “the furthest overground any of their ballistic missiles has ever travelled”, Joseph Dempsey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Twitter.
The North has raised global tensions with its rapid progress in weapons technology under leader Kim JongUn, who is closely associated with the programme.
The North’s last missile launch, a Hwasong12 IRBM just over two weeks ago, also overflew Japan’s main islands.
But, when Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July that appeared to bring much of the US mainland into range, it fired them on lofted trajectories that avoided passing over the archipelago nation.
Moscow/Seoul/Tokyo/Bei jing, Sept. 15: Just two days after world powers united to impose new sanctions on North Korea, an intermediate-range ballistic missile tested by Pyongyang that reached an altitude of about 770 km and travelled 3,700km past Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido before landing in the sea on Friday divided the international community,
Though the United Nations Security Council was set to meet later on Friday to discuss the launch at the request of the US and Japan, Washington said that Pyongyang’s main ally Beijing and Russia, which also has relations with the reclusive country, must shoulder the burden of responding to the North.
“China supplies North Korea with most of its oil. Russia is the largest employer of North Korean forced labour,” US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said in a statement. “China and Russia must indicate their intolerance for these reckless missile launches by taking direct actions of their own.”
But China called for restraint with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying, “The Chinese side opposes the DPRK’s violation of the resolution of the Security Council and its use of ballistic missile technology for launch activities. The concerned parties should exercise restraint. They should not take any further action that could aggravate the situation on the peninsula and in the region.”
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a radio station that “regrettably, aggressive rhetoric is the only thing coming from Washington”. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron agreed in a phone call that resuming direct talks with the North is the only way to resolve tensions over its nuclear programme. In a statement, the Kremlin said that the two leaders “were united in the opinion that it was unacceptable to allow an escalation in tension”.