Kim’s latest missile ‘harder’ to detect

NORTH KOREA/UNITED STATES: A new intercontinental ballistic missile fired by North Korea from a mobile launcher this week may be more difficult to detect, but analysts believe it would be unlikely to reach the United States with a full nuclear payload.

Dozens of photographs showed the Hwasong-15 being fired from a launch vehicle, overseen by a beaming Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader. The pictures showed the size of the rocket and the progress made since the launch of the smaller Hwasong-14 in September.

After studying the images, independent experts believe that Pyongyang cannot yet launch a nuclear attack on most of the US because the weight of any feasible warhead would significantly reduce the missile’s range.

North Korea’s first missile launch in two months this week continued to reverberate yesterday in Washington, Moscow and Beijing.

President Donald Trump tweeted that China’s envoy to North Korea had recently returned from a trip to Pyongyang without success. Trump tweeted: ‘‘The Chinese envoy, who just returned from North Korea, seems to have had no impact on Little Rocket Man. Hard to believe his people, and the military, put up with living in such horrible conditions. Russia and China condemned the launch.’’

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, questioned Trump’s strategy with North Korea.

‘‘One gets the impression that everything has been done on purpose to make Kim Jong Un snap and carry out further inadvisable actions,’’ Lavrov said.

The North Korean state media said that the Hwasong-15 flew for

53 minutes before landing harmlessly in the Sea of Japan more than 950km away. The Korea Central News Agency said the missile could have travelled as far as

13,000km, putting most of the world in range, including the east coast of America.

The agency added that Kim claimed that the day would be recorded in history for completing North Korea’s nuclear force.

A report published by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, however, claimed that the

13,000km range could be achieved only by a missile carrying a light dummy warhead.