SEOUL: North Korea said Friday it had test-fired strategic cruise missiles to demonstrate its nuclear counter-attack capability, days after it vowed to respond to what it called escalating US-led hostilities since the start of the Trump administration.
\nThe official Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the missile tests off the country\u2019s west coast Wednesday. They were the North\u2019s fourth missile launch event this year and the second of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term.
\nThe launches were designed to inform \u201cthe enemies, who are seriously violating our security environment and fostering and escalating the confrontation environment,\u201d of the North Korean military\u2019s counterattack capability and the readiness of its nuclear operations, KCNA said.
\nKim expressed satisfaction over the results of the drills and said the military must be fully ready to use its nuclear weapons, the report said.
\nSouth Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement later Friday that it had detected and tracked the North Korean launches. It said the South Korean military maintains readiness to repel any potential provocation by North Korea based on the solid South Korea-US military alliance.
\nSince his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has boasted of his summitry with Kim during his first term and said he would reach out to Kim again. North Korea hasn\u2019t directly responded to Trump\u2019s overture as it continues its typical aggressive rhetoric against the US and weapons testing activities.
\nMany experts say Kim, now preoccupied with his support of Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine with supply of weapons and troops, won\u2019t likely embrace Trump\u2019s outreach anytime soon. They say Kim could reconsider if he doubts he\u2019ll maintain North Korea\u2019s current solid cooperation with Russia after the war ends.
\nLast Saturday, North Korea\u2019s Defense Ministry alleged the US and its allies were ramping up more serious military provocations targeting North Korea since Trump took power. It cited the recent US-South Korean aerial exercise involving a US B-1B bomber and other reported activities involving US military assets. A Defense Ministry statement said North Korea will counter the strategic threat of the US with strategic means.
\nKim and Trump met three times from 2018-19 to discuss the fate of North Korea\u2019s nuclear program, but their diplomacy derailed due to disputes over US-led sanctions on the North. Kim has since sharply increased the pace of weapons tests to expand and modernize his nuclear arsenal. Having a bigger nuclear arsenal now, experts say Kim would think he could win greater US concessions if he revives diplomacy with Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: North Korea said Friday it had test-fired strategic cruise missiles to demonstrate its nuclear counter-attack capability, days after it vowed to respond to what it called escalating US-led hostilities since the start of the Trump administration. The official Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the missile tests off the country\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77752,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77735\/revisions\/77752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}