US President Donald Trump on Tuesday hit out at North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for testing the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit targets “anywhere in the world” and nudged China to make a “heavy move” to “end this nonsense once and for all”.
The announcement on North Korea state television said the “successful” Hwasong-14 missile test was overseen by Kim. It said the projectile had reached an altitude of 2,802km and flew 933km for 39 minutes before hitting a target in the Sea of Japan.
The altitude achieved by the missile was the highest ever reached by a North Korean missile, and puts the US on notice that Pyongyang could potentially hit the US mainland.
North Korea was now “a full-fledged nuclear power that has been possessed of the most powerful inter-continental ballistic rocket capable of hitting any part of the world”, the Korea Central Television (KCTV) said.
It would enable the country to “put an end to the US nuclear war threat and blackmail” and defend the Korean peninsula, it said.