N. Korea pulls off submarine missile test
SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an “eye-opening success,” state media said on Sunday, declaring Pyongyang had the ability to strike Seoul and the United States at any time.
Saturday’s missile test came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test.
The United States and Britain denounced the SLBMtest as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilize the region.
Hours after the launch, North Korea said it was ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States would suspend its annual military exercises with South Korea, the North Korean foreign minister told The Associated Press during an interview.
The North’s state-run KCNA news agency said the test, personally monitored by Kim, confirmed the reliability of the country’s underwater launching system.
It also cited the young leader as saying Pyongyang was now capable of “hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases.”
South Korea’s defense ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), flew around 30 kilometers and that the test showed “certain technological progress” in the North’s SLBM capability.
“It is believed… that the North would be able to deploy the SLBM weapon within three to four years, or even sooner,” ministry spokesperson Moon Sang-gyun told reporters.
North Korea has been pushing to acquire SLBM capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.
North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong defended his country’s right to increase its military readiness and warned that his country wouldn’t be cowed by international sanctions.
“The escalation of this military exercise level has reached its top level,” he said in his first interview on Saturday with a Western news organization at the North Korean diplomatic mission to the United Nations.
Ri held firm to Pyongyang’s position that the United States drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defense.
“Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we would also cease our nuclear tests,” he said.
South Korea dismissed the proposal and warned it would seek further sanctions for the SLBM test it called an “open provocation.”
“We strongly urge the North to… stop making a ridiculous attempt to link our regular joint military drills, which are defensive in nature, with a nuclear test that is banned under UN Security Council resolution,” the foreign ministry said on Sunday.
The US Department of State also said it would restrict Ri’s travel to UN functions only. Re-