North Korea’s ICBM launch continues pattern of provocation

REUTERS

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will continue to develop “formidable striking capabilities” that cannot be bartered or sold for anything, state media reported March 28, 2022.

Kim was meeting with officials, scientists, technicians and workers who contributed to a missile launch March 24, which North Korea said was its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), state news agency KCNA reported.

“Only when one is equipped with the formidable striking capabilities, overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone, one can prevent a war, guarantee the security of the country and contain and put under control all threats and blackmails by the imperialists,” Kim said, according to the report.

While personally overseeing the test, Kim said the new ICBM would help deter any military moves by the United States, which remains technically at war with the North after the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice. (Pictured: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks next to an intercontinental ballistic missile before it was launched March 24.)

Washington has sought to pressure Pyongyang into surrendering or reducing its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ICBMs, which are capable of striking targets in the U.S.

Kim said he had no intention of surrendering his arsenal, adding that his forces “cannot be bartered nor be bought with anything” and that his country will continue to build a “more perfect and stronger strategic force.”

The U.S. said March 25 that it will push for United Nations sanctions on North Korea to be strengthened, but the People’s Republic of China and Russia signaled opposition and argued for such measures to be eased.

North Korea said its latest launch was the Hwasong-17, and Japan and South Korea confirmed that flight data showed the launch flew higher and longer than any previous North Korean test.

Analysts said that state media coverage appeared to be trying to pass off footage from a previous launch, however, and Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that intelligence officials in Seoul and Washington think the North actually tested an older and slightly smaller Hwasong-15 ICBM.