North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has promised to develop more nuclear weapons, this while touting his country’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-15.
Kim Jong Un said this week that his scientists would continue making “more latest weapons and equipment” in order to “bolster up the nuclear force in quality and quantity,” North Korea’s state-run news agency said Wednesday, Reuters reported.
The dictator spoke during a munitions conference that was celebrating the latest ICBM, and he also awarded medals to “those in the field of defense science who most faithfully and perfectly carried out the Party’s plan for building strategic nuclear force, successfully test-fired ICBM Hwasong-15 and thus demonstrated the dignity and might of our powerful state all over the world once again,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, Reuters reported.
The Nov. 29 ICBM test was North Korea’s most powerful yet, and experts have speculated that the country might be able to reach the continental United States.
The ICBM was launched from Sain Ni and traveled more than 600 miles before crashing into the Sea of Japan, within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The ICBM was in flight for more than 50 minutes.
The BBC reported that, based on its trajectory, the missile could have traveled more than 8,000 miles, which means it could reach “any part of the continental United States.”
“But it seems likely, the analysis adds, that the missile had a very light mock warhead, meaning it might lack the power to carry a nuclear payload, which is much heavier, over that distance,” the BBC pointed out. “North Korea, however, says the Hwasong-15 could reach mainland US carrying a ‘super-large heavy warhead.’”
The missile launch defied international sanctions on the country led by dictator Kim Jong Un, and it drew ire across the globe, as this was the highest missile North Korea has ever launched – reaching nearly 2,800 miles at its highest.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the missile test went “higher, frankly, than any previous shot they have taken,” and that North Korea can hit “everywhere in the world, basically.”
North Korea had not tested a missile in more than two months – odd, considering the regime led by dictator Kim Jong Un has conducted now-16 missile tests this year alone, and also launched a nuclear bomb.
North Korea in early September conducted its sixth ever successful nuclear missile launch and claims that the country now has a Hydrogen bomb it can place on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
The most recent North Korean missile test was on Sept. 14, when North Korea launched an intermediate-range missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.
