Alwaght- North Korean leader says his country is “in the final stages” of preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Although North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests in the past decade and more than 20 ballistic missile tests in 2016 alone, and although it habitually threatens to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, the country has never flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.
In his annual New Year’s Day speech, which was broadcast on the North’s state-run KCTV on Sunday, Kim spoke proudly of the strides his country has made in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. He said that North Korea would continue to bolster its weapons programs as long as the United States remains hostile and continues its joint military exercises with South Korea.
“We have reached the final stage in preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic rocket,” he said.
If North Korea conducts a long-range missile test in coming months, it will test Trump’s new administration; despite years of increasingly harsh sanctions, North Korea has been advancing toward Mr. Kim’s professed goal of arming his isolated country with the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead at the United States.
After the North’s satellite launch in February, South Korean defense officials said that the North’s Unha rocket used in the launch, if successfully reconfigured as a missile, could fly more than 7,400 miles with a warhead of 1,100 to 1,300 pounds — far enough to reach the West Coast of the United States.
North Korea has deployed Rodong ballistic missiles that can reach most of South Korea and Japan, while it has had a spotty record in test-launching the Musudan, its intermediate-range ballistic missile with a range long enough to reach American military bases in the Pacific, including those on Guam.
