North Korea missile test earns Kim Jong Un’s praise

The US today strongly condemned North Korea’s test firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, describing it as a “provocation” in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions.

A North Korean ballistic missile fired from a submarine Wednesday flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) in the longest flight by that type of weapon, Seoul officials said, a range that can place much of South Korea within its striking distance. But its development of reliable submarine-launched missiles would add weapons that are harder to detect before liftoff.

The United States described the submarine missile test as a “provocative destabilizing” action by the Kim Jong-un-led North Korean regime.

Earlier this month, North Korea fired a land-launched ballistic missile directly into Japanese-controlled waters for the first time, drawing outrage from Tokyo.

The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said on its website, 38 North, that Pyongyang still faces significant technological challenges including building a new class of submarine to carry the missile.

He warned the United States and South Korea to refrain from “hurting the dignity and security of North Korea” if it wants to avoid deadly strikes.

Kim Jong Un “appreciated the test-fire as the greatest success and victory…”

The KCNA report said the test was conducted by a “high-angle fire system” and reconfirmed “the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system, the starting character of the high power solid fuel engine and phased flying kinetic feature after coming up to the surface of the water”.

A South Korean army soldier aims his machine gun during an anti-terror drill as part of Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016.

The South Korean military has predicted that it would take North Korea between two and three years to produce a deployable SLBM. “South Korea has expressed interest in the US-developed SM-3 or SM-6 ship-borne systems to provide anti-SLBM defense”.

Considering that the North only publicizes missile launches that have succeeded, the North’s wide coverage of Wednesday launch shows Pyongyang’s satisfaction with the test, an assessment shared by military experts.

South Korean officials say that all previous such missiles North Korea had launched flew only a short distance, too brief to be considered successful.

Before the launch, North Korea warned that the joint military exercises were pushing the Korean Peninsula “to the brink of a war” and asked for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “Those threats are coming closer each moment”. But Japan was infuriated over the launch, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calling it an “unforgivable act”.

The already tense atmosphere on the Korean peninsula has been aggravated by the US-South Korea military drills.

The missile was sacked at a high angle, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported, an indication that its full range would be 1,000km at an ordinary trajectory.

South Korean military concluded that it reached an altitude of 500 kilometers, about 350 kilometers higher than the normal altitude of 150 kilometers.

North Korea’s newest submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test showed genuine development beforehand the armed force’s ability to launch a nuclear strike on the United States mainland or other target in the world.