Seoul, South Korea. With an American carrier strike force training offshore and the THAAD missile system functional in the South, Kim Jong-Un has launched a new missile causing a lot of worry in Washington.
Land Mi-kooy told South Korea’s parliament the test-launch had been detected by the controversial THAAD anti-missile system, whose deployment in the South has infuriated China. Who have boycotted South Korea in record numbers.
The North has been working on a missile, mounted with a nuclear warhead, capable of striking the U.S. mainland. North Korea’s missile program is progressing faster than expected, South Korea’s defense minister stated on Tuesday, after the UN Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday’s test-launch.
President Donald Trump’s administration has called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang’s provocations and has warned that the “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over. It has reiforced its own nuclear forces in Guam, activated the THAAD system in South Korea and parked a carrier strike group offshore.
The Chinese have strongly opposed THAAD, whose radar it fears could be used to spy into its territory, despite assurances from Washington that THAAD is purely defensive. South Korean companies, from automakers to retailers and cosmetics firms, have been hit in China by a national boycott over Seoul’s decision to deploy the system.
The missile flew 489 miles on a trajectory reaching an altitude of 1,312 miles, KCNA reported. The North Korean test launch was a legitimate act of self-defense and American protests were a “wanton violation of the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK”, a North Korean diplomat told the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
The regime of Kim Jong-Un in Pyongyang has regularly threatened to destroy the United States, which it accuses of attempting regime change in North Korea, destabalization of North Korea, and interference in its internal business.