Could Kim’s new missile hit the US?
Nuclear fears as North Korea claims successful rocket test
FEARS of a global war were stoked dramatically yesterday after North Korea claimed it had successfully tested a missile that could hit the US.
Pyongyang said the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile hit its target 580 miles away after a 39minute flight during which it reached an altitude of 1,740 miles.
The launch, personally supervised by leader Kim Jong-un, showed North Korea has the capability to strike ‘anywhere in the world’, officials claimed, heightening tensions in the region.
State television showed pictures of an elated dictator pumping clenched fists and applauding with his subordinates. The missile landed in the Sea of Japan, around 200 miles off Japan.
But experts say that on a standard trajectory it could have flown more than 4,000 miles, giving it the potential for use in a nuclear strike on Alaska, although not the main islands of Hawaii or the other 48 US states.
The launch appeared to be the North’s most successful missile test yet and experts were yesterday trying to determine if it was in fact an ICBM as claimed.
The test, on America’s Independence Day holiday and ahead of this week’s G20 summit of world leaders in Germany, was in defiance of a UN Security Council ban on the rogue state’s ballistic activities. It provoked immediate condemnation around the world.
Donald Trump mocked Kim on Twitter and suggested China do more to restrain its neighbour following a series of missile tests.
The US President said: ‘Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!’
The US has called for a closeddoor meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the launch today. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he expected the issue to be on the G20 agenda, adding: ‘The international community must redouble its efforts to impose a price on this regime, which strains every nerve and sinew to build nuclear weapons and launch illegal missiles, even as the people of North Korea endure starvation and poverty.’
Russia and China pledged to work together to defuse the deepening crisis. They said the launch was unacceptable and called on Kim to freeze his weapons programme. They also called on the US and South Korea to end largescale military exercises in the region and on Washington to halt its deployment of a missile shield.
North Korea brought out one of its most symbolic media assets to announce the key moment in its missile development – a woman TV presenter in her 70s.
Ri Chun-hee has previously told her loyal viewers of momentous news such as the deaths of the country’s founder Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il. Her appearances are rare nowadays but the state broadcaster called her back into the studio yesterday.
North Korea was ‘a strong nuclear state which, in addition to its atomic weapons, has very powerful ICBMs that can strike any place in the world in its possession’, she said. It would ‘proudly protect peace and security on the Korean peninsula’.
‘Strike anywhere in the world’