New missile has nuclear capacity, Pyongyang says
SEOUL — North Korea said Monday that the missile it launched a day earlier was a new ballistic missile that can carry a large, heavy nuclear warhead, warning that the United States’ military bases in the Pacific were within its range.
North Korea launched what American officials called an intermediaterange ballistic missile on Sunday. The missile, believed to have a longer range than any other North Korean missile tested so far, landed in the sea between the North and Japan, sparking angry comments from President Trump, as well as from President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Monday that the new missile, Hwasong-12, hit the targeted open water 489 miles away after soaring to an altitude of 1,312 miles. The missile was launched at a deliberately high angle so it would not fall too close to a neighboring country, the news agency said.
The flight data announced by the North roughly matched that released by Japanese and South Korean officials hours after the launch.
David Wright, a director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post that if the same missile was flown on a standard trajectory, it would have a maximum range of 2,800 miles.
That would qualify the projectile as an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which could fly far enough to target key U.S. military bases in the Pacific, including those in Guam. The North on Monday used the unfamiliar term “medium long range” to describe the missile.
The state news agency said the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, watched the launch. If the United States provokes North Korea, Kim said, it will not escape “the biggest disaster in history,” according to the news agency.
Although North Korea has vowed to develop the ability to attack the U.S. with nuclear warheads and has tested missiles that can reach throughout the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity, it has never tested a long-range missile that could fly across the Pacific. Missile experts say North Korea may still be years away from mastering the technologies needed to build a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile, although Kim warned in his New Year’s Day speech that his country had reached a “final stage” in preparing to conduct its first ICBM test.