North Korea says the missile it tested Sunday is capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead, state media said Monday.
The
country's leader, Kim Jong Un, supervised the launch of the Hwasong-12
missile that reached an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometers (1,312 miles) and
flew 787 kilometers (489 miles), according to state news agency KCNA.
The
test was "aimed at verifying the tactical and technological
specifications of the newly developed ballistic rocket capable of
carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead," KCNA said.
North
Korea warned the United States not to provoke it, saying the "US
mainland and Pacific operations" are within range of North Korean
missiles.
Analysts called this
North Korea's most successful missile test ever and a significant
advancement in its quest to build a nuclear-capable intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM).
"North Korea's latest successful missile
test represents a level of performance never before seen from a North
Korean missile," aerospace engineer John Schilling wrote on the blog 38 North, published by the US Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
The
high altitude and long flight time -- 30 minutes, the US said --
indicate a missile with an extended range, according to David Wright,
co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Writing on his organization's blog,
Wright pointed out that if the missile did reach that height and fly
that far, it could reach the US territory of Guam in the Pacific.
According to KCNA the test showed North Korea
"has all powerful means for retaliatory strike" should Washington take
any military action to stop its nuclear weapons program.
Tong
Zhao, an analyst with the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy,
said if the missile does have the range to hit Guam, it could give North
Korea "a regional nuclear deterrence," meaning it might not need to
pursue an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which could reach
the US mainland.
But Melissa
Hanham, senior research associate at the James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies in California, said it could be a stepping
stone to just that.
"This may
become half or a third of an ICBM," she said, pointing out that ICBMs
are built in two or three stages stacked atop of each other.
Hanham also said the fact that the
missile's re-entry vehicle flew so high above the Earth put it under
more stress than a warhead might undergo when fired on a more normal,
flatter trajectory
North Korean
engineers "may well be able to draw warhead re-entry data from that
which is applicable to their ICBM ambitions," said Euan Graham, an
expert on North Korea at Australia's Lowy Institute.
"Given
speculation over the past months about the possibility of military
action by the Trump administration to prevent Pyongyang from acquiring
such weapons, the possible testing of ICBM subsystems in this low-key
manner may be a North Korean hedge against the possibility of such
action," 38 North's Schilling wrote.
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