South Korea must urgently and completely reform its defense system in view of the threat of North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday.
“I believe we might need a complete defense reform at the level of a rebirth instead of making some improvements or modifications,” Moon said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency, adding that one of the urgent tasks that the country is facing is to secure defense capabilities “to counter North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations.”
Earlier in the day, North Korea announced it was considering the possibility of carrying out missile strikes near the Pacific island of Guam, where US Andersen Air Force Base and the Naval Base Guam in Apra Harbor are located.
On Tuesday, Japanese Defense Ministry in its annual White Paper stated that North Korea could have developed the technology for production of a miniaturized nuclear warhead to arm its missiles. Since 2006, North Korea has carried out five tests of nuclear weapons, with Pyongyang claiming it tested a miniaturized nuclear warhead during the latest one, conducted in September 2016.
On Saturday, the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution tightening the sanctions against North Korea, following the latter’s two most recent ballistic missile launches, carried out in July.