North Korea Threatens Nuclear Missile Tests
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un said on Tuesday that the country will soon conduct a nuclear warhead test and test-launch ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Kim made the comments as he supervised a successful simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile that measured the "thermodynamic structural stability of newly developed heat-resisting materials", Al Jazeera cited the North's official KCNA news agency as reporting.
"Declaring that a nuclear warhead explosion test and a test-fire of several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads will be conducted in a short time to further enhance the reliance of nuclear attack capability, he [Kim] instructed the relevant section to make prearrangement for them to the last detail," the agency said.
In response, South Korea's defense ministry said it did not believe that North Korea had acquired missile re-entry technology.
It also noted there were no indications of activities at the North's nuclear test site, or its long-range rocket station.
But South Korea's defense ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun warned, "If North Korea puts this into action, it certainly violates the United Nations Security Council resolution, and it is a grave provocation against the Korean peninsula and the international community."
"We once again urge North Korea to immediately stop this act which leads to its self-destruction."
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the North would lead itself to self-destruction if it continued the confrontation with the international community.
The North's report comes amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula as South Korean and American troops stage annual military exercises that Seoul has described as the largest ever.
In the apparent re-entry simulation, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party carried pictures on Tuesday of a dome-shaped object placed under what appeared to be a rocket engine and being blasted with flaming exhaust.
In separate images, Kim observed the object described by KCNA as a warhead tip.
The North has issued belligerent statements almost daily since coming under a new UN resolution adopted this month to tighten sanctions after a nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket last month.