N. Korea’s ICBM test launch ‘not far away,’ will tackle ‘hostile policy’ of US – state media
“The series of recent strategic weapons tests show that we are not too far away from test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile,” North Korean Rodong Sinmun official newspaper said, according to South Korean media.
© KCNA / Reuters
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“Historically speaking, the US has never dared to go to war with a country that possesses nuclear weapons or ICBMs,” it added.
The US also forecasts that Pyongyang may test-fire the missile in 2017. “They made further progress in their ability to develop re-entry vehicles in their last test… The pace of the threat is advancing faster than I think was considered when we did the first ballistic missile defense review back in 2010,” Robert Soofer from Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy told Japanese-language Kyodo News, as cited by Yonhap.
Tensions are running extremely high on the Korean Peninsula. In late May, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile which landed in the Sea of Japan, about 300km off the Japanese coast.
Also in May, Pyongyang said that it had successfully tested the Pukguksong-2 intermediate range ballistic missile after a projectile was detected landing in international waters off Japan’s east coast. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised the test of the new missile.
READ MORE: N. Korea declares latest ballistic missile launch a success
The same month, North Korea claimed it had successfully tested a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile.
“Of all the missiles that North Korea has fired until now, Hwasong-12 is the closest one to the ICBM,” Yang Uk said, as cited by Seoul-based Korean Herald newspaper. “As long as the North can find a way to better use its technology for stage separation, it can fire an ICBM-level missile.”