N Korea leader says new missile can strike US Pacific bases

Seoul/ AP

Leader Kim Jong-Un threatened US military bases across the Pacific after North Korea’s test of a powerful new missile triggered emergency UN Security Council talks late Wednesday on curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear
programme.
Kim, who personally monitored Wednesday’s Musudan missile test, applauded a “great event” that significantly bolstered the North’s pre-emptive nuclear attack capability, the official KCNA news agency reported.
“We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre,” Kim was quoted as saying.
A Korean-language version of the same report had Kim referring to “the American bastards.”
The Musudan has a theoretical range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres (1,550 to 2,500 miles), with the upper estimate covering US military bases as far away as Guam. After a string of failures in recent months, North Korea tested two Musudans on Wednesday, one of which flew 400 kilometres into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
KCNA said the missile had been fired at a high angle to simulate its full range, and had reached a maximum height of more than 1,400 kilometres.
The test “marked an important occasion in further strengthening the nuclear attack capacity of our state,” Kim said.

International outcry
The launch was condemned by the international community and the UN Security Council met for closed-door consultations on how best to respond. France’s deputy UN ambassador Alexis Lamek, whose country holds the council presidency, told reporters after the meeting that Council members had been united in “deep concern and opposition” to the test which was a clear violation of UN resolutions. Existing UN measures prohibit North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.
The United States, NATO, Japan and South Korea also denounced the test, with US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter urging the expansion of missile defence systems in the region.
“We need to stay ahead of the threat,” Carter said. Seoul and Washington are currently in talks about deploying the advanced US THAAD missile system in South Korea—a move vehemently opposed by China.
Experts and government officials said the Musudan launch marked another worrying step forward for a weapons programme that ultimately aspires to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear strike on the US mainland. “We can’t deny that (North Korea’s) technological development is making progress, and the situation is alarming,” Japanese government spokesman Koichi Hagiuda told reporters.
The North has publicly displayed an ICBM, called the KN-08, which uses the same engine technology as the Musudan but has never been test-fired. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said the international community had to find a way to get Pyongyang to accept a missile test moratorium.

Pyongyang rules out
nuclear talks resumption

Beijing / AP

North Korea has “no thoughts” of resuming six-party talks on its nuclear programme, a top Pyongyang official said on Thursday in Beijing, despite the repeated urgings of its closest ally China.
The North quit the now-stalled negotiations aimed at curbing its nuclear weapons programme in 2009, and soon afterwards carried out its second atomic test. The talks are hosted by China, and include South Korea, the United States, Russia, and Japan. Beijing, the North’s main diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, wants to revive negotiations, although Washington, Seoul and Tokyo all insist Pyongyang—which carried out two missile launches earlier this week—must first take some tangible steps towards
denuclearisation.
Choe Son-Hui, deputy director-general of the North American affairs bureau in Pyongyang’s foreign ministry, said in Beijing: “For now, we have no thoughts about taking part in talks to discuss the DPRK’s denuclearisation.”