By Moore
North’s Korea’s recent flurry of missile tests was in retaliation for military drills by South Korea and the United States – and were designed to simulate how the country’s tactical nuclear weapons could “hit and wipe out” its southern neighbor, state-run media confirmed on Monday.
The hermit kingdom fired two ballistic missiles with mock nuclear warheads on Sunday, the seventh since Sept. 25.
Leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launches and said they were an “obvious warning and clear demonstration of informing the enemies of our nuclear response posture and nuclear attack capabilities,” Korean Central News Agency said.
“Through seven times of launching drills of the tactical nuclear operation units, the actuality of the nuclear combat forces of our state and its militant effectiveness and actual war capabilities, which is fully ready to hit and wipe out the set objects at the intended places in the set time, were displayed to the full,” KCNA reported.
The outlet said the missile tests were in response to the “dangerous” military exercises between South Korea and the US that included nuclear submarines and the USS Ronald Reagan off the Korean peninsula that began in August.
In light of the military presence, North Korea “decided to organize military drills under the simulation of an actual war at different levels in order to check and improve the reliability and combat power of our state war deterrence and send a strong military reaction warning to the enemies,” KCNA said.
The launches simulated tactical nuclear warheads striking military command facilities, main ports and airports in South Korea.
“The effectiveness and practical combat capability of our nuclear combat force were fully demonstrated as it stands completely ready to hit and destroy targets at any time from any location,” KCNA said.
The North Korean mouthpiece quoted Kim saying that the “busy military moves of the enemies .. will only invite our greater reaction, and we are always strictly watching the situation crisis.”
He also said that as long as South Korea and the US talked about “dialogue and negotiation” while making “military threats,” “we have no content for dialogue with the enemies and felt no necessity to do so.”
Responding to the KCNA report, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office said: “it is important to accurately recognise the severity of security issues in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia to prepare properly.”
