N. Korea calls rocket nuke- ready
China joining sanctions push, U. N. Security Council says
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Monday boasted that it successfully launched a new type of “medium long- range” ballistic rocket that can carry a heavy nuclear warhead, an escalation of its nuclear program that the U. N. Security Council warned could require new sanctions on Pyongyang.
Outsiders saw a significant technological jump in the weekend test, with the rocket apparently flying higher and for a longer time than any other such previous missile.
Amid condemnation in Seoul, Tokyo, Washington and Moscow, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised more nuclear and missile tests and warned that his country’s weapons could strike the U. S. mainland and Pacific holdings.
North Korean news reports are often exaggerated — Pyongyang has threatened for decades to reduce Seoul to a “sea of fire,” for instance — but Monday’s claim, if confirmed, would mark another advance toward the North’s goal of fielding a nuclear- tipped missile capable of reaching the U. S. mainland.
Some experts, including officials in Tokyo, said Sunday’s launch successfully tested a new type of missile, potentially the longest- range in North Korea’s arsenal.
The test is also an immediate challenge to South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae- in, a liberal elected last week who expressed a desire to reach out to North Korea. Pyongyang’s push to boost its weapons program also makes it one of the Trump administration’s most urgent foreign policy worries, though Washington has struggled to settle on a policy.
The U. N. Security Council late Monday expressed “utmost concern” at what it called North Korea’s “highly destabilizing behavior and provocative defiance” of council resolutions demanding a halt to all nuclear- related tests. It again demanded that Pyongyang conduct no further nuclear or ballistic missile tests.
The statement from the U. N.’ s most powerful body said its 15 members agreed to “take further significant measures including sanctions, in line with the council’s previously expressed determination.” It also vowed to fully implement the six sanctions resolutions previously adopted and urged all U. N. member nations to implement the measures “in an expeditious and serious manner.”
Council diplomats said the language was significant because China, North Korea’s strongest ally, signed on. The U. S. ambassador to the U. N., Nikki Haley, said on ABC television that the United States has been working well with China and raised the possibility that new sanctions against North Korea could include oil imports.
“We are calling on all those folks in the region, particularly China and Russia, to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve this situation and bring stability to the peninsula,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday.
New sanctions were expected to be discussed at a closed council meeting today, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks have been private.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency called the missile a “new ground- to- ground, medium long- range strategic ballistic rocket,” and it said the “Hwasong- 12” is “capable of carrying a large, heavy nuclear warhead.”
Kim witnessed the test and “hugged officials in the field of rocket research, saying that they worked hard to achieve a great thing,” according to the news agency.
The rocket, “newly designed in a Korean- style,” flew 490 miles and reached a maximum altitude of 1,310 miles, the North said, and “verified the homing feature of the warhead under the worst re- entry situation and accurate performance of detonation system.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said more analysis was needed to verify the North’s claim on the rocket’s technological features. Spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said it is still unlikely that North Korea has re- entry technology, which would return a warhead safely back into the atmosphere.
Japanese officials said Sunday that the missile flew for a half- hour and reached an unusually high altitude before landing in the Sea of Japan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in China, condemned North Korea’s latest missile launch as “dangerous” but cautioned against “intimidating” the country.
“I would like to confirm that we are categorically against the expansion of the club of nuclear states, including through the Korean Peninsula,” Putin told reporters. “We are against it and consider it counterproductive, damaging, dangerous.”