North Korea test-fired a huge, new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Thursday, South Korea’s military said.
Confirming the ICBM test on Friday, North Korea’s state media said it fired a Hwasong-17 ICBM, with leader Kim Jong Un watching on with his daughter
The statement, carried by state news agency KCNA, said the new ICBM, launched at Pyongyang International Airport, reached a maximum altitude of 6,045 kilometers and flew 1,000.2 km for 4,151 seconds before accurately landing on the preset area in the open waters off the East Sea.
North Korea’s state media said the test of Hwasong-17, called by observers here the “monster missile,” was intended to demonstrate a “tough response posture” and was a response to the “provocative and aggressive” military drills.
It came hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo amid Washington’s campaign to bolster trilateral security cooperation with the two key regional allies to counter the North’s nuclear and missile threats.
Kim was quoted as stressing the need to “strike fear into the enemies” and warning that the allies’ persistent military moves against the North will only bring “irreversible, grave threat” onto themselves.
He emphasized that the North will “react to nuclear weapons with nukes and frontal confrontation in kind” and called for “strictly maintaining the rapid response posture of the strategic forces to cope with any armed conflict and war.”
