Kim vows to further develop 'powerful strike means'

Finance

Published: 28 Mar. 2022, 17:20 Updated: 28 Mar. 2022, 17:33

Kim vows to further develop 'powerful strike means'

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center, walks forward in what appears to be a staged photo-op released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on the occasion of the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday. Kim is flanked on his right by Jang Chang-ha, chief of the North's National Academy of Defense Science, and Kim Jong-sik, chief of the Workers' Party Military Industry Department on his left. [YONHAP]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that his country will further develop a "powerful strike means" to reinforce national defense capabilities, according to the regime's state media on Monday.

In his remarks regarding Pyongyang's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch on Thursday, Kim said, “We must be strong under whatever circumstances to defend peace, accelerate socialist construction and be responsible for the security of the rising generations, free from any threat,” reported the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The KCNA said that the North Korean leader made the remarks during a photo session with officials and scientists who contributed to what the North has called a “successful” test of a Hwasong-17 ICBM, which was personally supervised by Kim.

Kim vowed that his regime will “continue to attain the goal of reinforcing national defense capabilities and develop more powerful strike means to equip our People’s Army.”

In a sign that the North will press on with its development of longer-range missiles and nuclear weapons, Kim stressed that a country can prevent a war and guarantee its security only when it is equipped with “formidable striking capabilities” and “overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone.”

The missile the North fired Thursday, which traveled 1,080 kilometers (671 miles) and reached an apogee of over 6,200 kilometers, is hypothetically capable of reaching the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Experts believe that the North’s ICBM program is aimed to deter the United States, which is bound by treaty to defend South Korea, from intervening in the event of a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim also thanked the people of North Korea, saying that the development of the North's national defense would have been “unthinkable without the trust and ardent patriotism of all the people who rendered unconditional and absolute support and encouragement to the indispensable sacred cause of building up the nuclear war deterrence of the country.”

While the North claimed to have tested a Hwasong-17 during Thursday’s test, U.S. and South Korean intelligence believe that the missile in question was actually a Hwasong-15 missile disguised to look like a newer, larger missile.

According to a South Korean defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the JoongAng Ilbo, U.S. and South Korean analysis of the missile in question revealed it had two engine nozzles, like the Hwasong-15 that was test-fired in 2017, instead of the Hwasong-17, which has four nozzles. The engine combustion time of the first-stage rocket was also similar to that of the Hwasong-15.

The analysis was based on data from the allies’ intelligence assets, including from a U.S. military reconnaissance satellite equipped with infrared thermal sensors.

Military authorities explained that while the missile fired Thursday flew farther than the Hwasong-15 missile that flew some 960 kilometers and topped out at 4,500 kilometers in the 2017 launch, it also could have been capped with a lighter warhead the longer-range Hwasong-17.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]