North Korea stated that Thursday’s launch was its largest
Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), fired throughout
a drill to show a “tough response posture” to ongoing
US-South Korea navy drills, state media reported, Trend experiences citing
Al
Arabiya.
Photos of the launch launched on Friday by the nation’s
authorities media confirmed Kim Jong Un watching the launch along with his
daughter, and included images from area apparently shot by a
digicam mounted on the missile.
North Korea fired the ICBM into the ocean between the Korean
peninsula and Japan on Thursday, hours earlier than South Korea’s
president flew to Tokyo for a summit that mentioned methods to counter
the nuclear-armed North.
“The launching drill of the strategic weapon serves as an
event to provide a stronger warning to the enemies deliberately
escalating the strain within the Korean peninsula whereas persistently
resorting to irresponsible and reckless navy threats,” state
information company KCNA stated.
South Korean and American forces started 11 days of joint drills,
dubbed “Freedom Shield 23,” on Monday, held on a scale not seen
since 2017 to counter the North’s rising threats.
Kim accused the United States and South Korea of accelerating
tensions with the navy drills.
He “careworn the necessity to strike concern into the enemies, actually
deter conflict and reliably assure the peaceable lifetime of our individuals
and their battle for socialist building by irreversibly
bolstering up the nuclear conflict deterrent,” KCNA reported.