North Korea’s mobile missile launcher seen moving: Japan’s NHK
On February 5, 2016 In World
North Korea plans to launch satellite.
South Korea’s leader warned the North “will have to pay a severe price”.
Reports of the planned launch led to renewed calls by the USA for tougher United Nations sanctions, which already being discussed following North Korea’s recent nuclear test.
In defiance of repeated warnings from the United States and its allies, Kim Jong Un’s government has informed the United Nations (UN) agency responsible for navigation safety that it plans to launch a long-range rocket later this month. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was quite right to demand that North Korea refrain from going through with the launch, saying, “This would constitute a violation of these resolutions and represent a serious provocation to Japan’s security”.
South Korea warned on Wednesday of “searing” consequences if North Korea doesn’t abandon plans to launch a long-range rocket that critics call a banned test of ballistic missile technology. This suggests that the North is preparing for a space launch in coming weeks, according to 38 North, a North Korea-focused website run by the U.S-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Still in defiance of sanctions, North Korea has repeatedly pledged to launch a series of satellites as part of its space development program.
They said the blast was too small for it to have been a full-fledged hydrogen bomb.
China is North Korea’s sole main ally, though Beijing disapproves of its nuclear program.
“We are extremely concerned about this”, Lu Kang, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
“This meeting served as a midterm review ahead of the Workers’ Party congress in May, which is symbolic of the start of the Kim Jong-un era”, Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea studies professor at Korea University, told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. Most experts believe it is another effort to conduct ballistic tests that would threaten all in the region, and the West coast of the United States.
North Korea probably does not yet have the ability to fire nuclear weapons reliably at America-though every test will bring it closer to that objective. This indicates China has not exerted enough pressure on North Korea.
The missile test poses potentially a greater threat to the Philippines than Japan as the second stage of the three-stage rocked is projected to land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Luzon island.
If such a weapon, or another improved long-range missile variant, ended up in Iranian hands as well, North Korea would be capable of hitting the U.S. West Coast with an ICBM, while Iran would be able to hit the East Coast.
