North Korea is celebrating the launch of a “precision-guided ballistic rocket” that dictator Kim Jong-un described as “perfect,” warning that “the Yankees will be very much worried” by the new development.
Pyongyang confirmed the successful launch of what South Korean and U.S. authorities described on Monday as “a Scud-type short-range missile,” according to South Korean newswire Yonhap. The North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun claimed the rocket boasted a “precision guidance system” that could make it more efficient in targeting enemies.
Rodong also published several photos of Kim watching the missile test and quoted him describing the missile as “perfect.”
“Seeing such a perfect new-type anti-aircraft guided weapon system, I miss the General more a lot,” Kim reportedly said, making an apparent reference to his father, Kim Jong-il. “That weapon system is a posthumous one the development of which had been guided by him with much effort since the start. The General would have been very glad to see this perfect weapon system as he had put his heart and soul into the work to bolster up the state anti-aircraft capability until the last moments of his life.”
Rodong noted that the missile tested this week had first appeared in public during the Day of the Sun parade in April, a holiday to celebrate the birthday of communist dictator Kim Il-Sung. While the international community feared that Kim’s grandson would celebrate his legacy with a new nuclear test, North Korea abstained from such tests, instead, staging a massive military parade showcasing the most dramatic pieces in the North Korean military’s arsenal.
The state newspaper described the rocket as a “sharp shooter’s arms of precision hitting a target and such accurate hit would dig up eyes of the enemies.”
“Whenever news of our recent valuable victory is broadcast, the Yankees would be very much worried and the gangsters of the south Korean puppet army would get dispirited more and more,” Kim is quoted as saying about the launch.
While the “Yankees” have clearly expressed concern, the Trump administration has not belied any panic, and, instead, has responded by reminded the world of the threat to global stability North Korea poses to all, not just America. During an interview Sunday, before news of the latest missile test, Secretary of Defense James Mattis emphasized that North Korea was “a threat to the region, to Japan, to South Korea, and in the event of war, they would bring danger to China and to Russia as well.”
“The bottom line is it would be a catastrophic war if this turns into a combat if we’re not able to resolve this situation through diplomatic means,” he concluded.
In reaction to the latest missile test, President Donald Trump issued a statement on Twitter that appeared to judge the test not as a challenge to America, but as one to neighboring China. China has long been North Korea’s closest ally and biggest trade partner, though Kim Jong-un’s military belligerence has strained the relationship. “North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet another ballistic missile … but China is trying hard!” Trump wrote.
North Korean propaganda outlets – Rodong and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) being the major ones available to the outside world – nonetheless continued to use their typical bombast in subsequent dispatches threatening the United States and South Korea. “The army and people of the DPRK are resolutely smashing the challenges by the enemy through a steady offensive no matter how desperately the enemy move to do harm to the DPRK,” Rodong announced Tuesday. “The structure of standoff between the DPRK and the U.S. has turned into that of nuclear standoff and the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent serving as the best guarantee for the eternal prosperity of the nation and global peace is getting stronger with the passage of time.”
“Today the DPRK is fully ready to counter any form of war, operation and combat the U.S. imperialists want to choose,” the newspaper insisted.
KCNA, in turn, protested a new round of planned joint exercises between Seoul and Washington. “The gangster-like U.S. imperialists are making all the more desperate in their moves to ignite a nuclear war despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK,” the agency said in an article published Tuesday. “Such military provocation of the U.S. imperialists is a dangerous reckless racket for bringing the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a war.”
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