UN strongly condemns North Korea’s latest missile launch

If the launch doesn’t have any political or diplomatic meaning, it could just be part of its bigger goal to build up a nuclear and missile arsenal.

It was the fourth time the Security Council has adopted a press statement on North Korea. However Reuters subsequently reported that White House officials determined the missile was a liquid-fuel scud.

The U.S. Army confirmed the report and said that the missile was a KN-15 that flew about 60 kilometers (37 miles).

That time the United States leader responded by pledging “100 per cent” support for Japan, which along with South Korea is Washington’s key regional ally.

The test elicited a matter of fact response from the US State Department, unlike the standard condemnations that usually follow Pyongyang’s missile tests.

The cruise missile is capable of reaching the northernmost city of Sinuiju in North Korea, when fired from the South’s southernmost Jeju Island, according to sources. “We have no further comment”, he said in a statement.

North Korea published photos after the test that demonstrated “a very challenging technology for us” to detect before launch, he said.

The launch will fuel worldwide concerns about the hermit state’s weapons programme.

The exchange of messages came before the United States airstrikes, which were President Donald Trump’s biggest foreign policy move since taking office in January in reaction to what Washington says was a gas attack by Assad’s government that killed at least 70 people in a rebel-held territory. -China summit in Florida will be whether Trump will make good on his threat to use crucial trade ties with China to pressure Beijing to do more to rein in Pyongyang.

North Korea’s foreign ministry on Monday assailed Washington for its tough talk and for an ongoing joint military exercise with South Korea and Japan which Pyongyang sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion. Many weapons experts say the North could have a functioning nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the continental USA within a few years.

Three missiles landed in waters in Japan’s economic exclusion zone, which extends 200 miles from its shoreline.

Gen. John Hyten, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, told a congressional panel Tuesday that the February launch marked a significant advancement for North Korea because it was its first successful solid-fueled missile fired from a mobile launcher.