(Hot News Today Friday 26 August 2016)
Kim Jong-un hails firing of submarine missile as ‘greatest success’
SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country’s test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile this week had achieved the “greatest success”.
He claimed that the continental United States as well as American military bases in the Pacific were now within the striking range of his missiles, according to the North’s state media yesterday.
Analysts and defence officials in the region said North Korea was still years away from achieving the capability Mr Kim claimed.
The country still does not have submarines large and advanced enough to travel long distances without detection to attack distant targets across the Pacific, they said.
Nevertheless, the North’s test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Wednesday alarmed leaders of the region, as it demonstrated the advances the secretive country has made in its efforts to significantly enhance the range and stealth of its missiles.
At a previously scheduled meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea criticised the missile test — a rare moment of unity amid their squabbles over territorial disputes and Japan’s actions during World War II.
Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said North Korea’s action “is simply not tolerated”.
His South Korean counterpart, Mr Yun Byung-se, said the three countries “confirmed our common view that we must deter North Korea’s further provocative actions”.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said: “China opposes the development of North Korea’s nuclear programme, and any words or deeds that create tensions in the peninsula.”
“If there was a silver lining, it would be the fact that it provided the three an opportunity to have something in common, which is rare,” said Mr J Berkshire Miller, an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Pukguksong, or Polaris, missile flew 500km towards Japan on Wednesday. When the North first tested it in May last year, the projectile exploded midair shortly after being ejected from under the water.
Mr Kim, who supervised the launching on Wednesday, “appreciated the test-fire as the greatest success and victory”, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said yesterday.
It quoted Mr Kim as saying that “the US mainland and the operational theatre in the Pacific are now within the striking range of the Korean People’s Army”.
The news agency also said North Korea launched its missile at a “high angle” from the maximum launching depth, indicating that it could have flown more than 500km if it had launched it at a normal angle.
South Korean defence officials told reporters that the North appeared to have launched the missile at a sharp angle to keep it from landing too close to Japan.
Mr Kim claimed that the test on Wednesday showed that his country now had “all substantial means capable of standing up against the US nuclear hegemony”.
He urged his engineers to step up efforts to mount nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles and to develop the means of their delivery.
During a visit to a front-line military unit on Wednesday, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea said the North’s “irrational decision-making system” and Mr Kim’s “unpredictable character” made the North’s nuclear and missile threats more dangerous. THE NEW YORK TIMES
◎ Even if Pyongyang has been testing submarine-launched missiles, it still needs to build a large, stealthy and long-range submarine to deploy them, South Korean defence officials have said.
◎ North Korea has an outdated fleet of 70 submarines, most of them mini-vessels unfit for operations beyond littoral waters. Its largest submarines at the moment are copies of the Soviet-era Romeo class.
◎ The South Korean military has been monitoring a North Korean effort to build a modified Sinpo class submarine. Even this new design with diesel engines would not be enough to make a round trip across the Pacific without surfacing and exposing itself. But it still could pose a serious threat to South Korea, Japan and American military bases in the region.