South Korean Defense Ministry handout: South Korean Vessels taking part in a naval drill off the east coast on September 4, 2017.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has said that North Korea is believed to be moving an ICBM. It said that the missile’s projectile and how it was being transported was unclear.
British Conservative politician William Hague said that Kim Jong-un is probably a prisoner of his own dictatorship. “Born the third son of Kim Jong-il, he has always faced a choice of getting absolute power for himself or facing the dire consequences of not doing so,” Hague wrote in the Telegraph, adding that were Kim to dismantle the brutal North Korean regime, or even relax his grip on power, he could easily be assassinated.
Russian President Putin also warned that the escalating North Korean crisis could cause a “planetary catastrophe” and huge loss of life.
“The world is stunned by news that the DPRK’s intermediate-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 crossed the sky over islands of Japan along the preset flight track and accurately hit the preset target waters in northern Pacific.
The U.S. and Japan, the sworn enemies of the Korean nation, are struck with horror in face of the mettle of the DPRK which took the toughest counteraction against the U.S. insensible war drills. In the meantime, the Korean people feel relieved, their towering grudge settled,” KCNA had reported on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that new sanctions imposed on North Korea would be “useless” and “ineffective”, adding that imposing tougher sanctions on the regime of Kim Jong Un over its nuclear missile programme would not change the leadership in Pyongyang, but could lead to large-scale human suffering.
In an article published in KCNA, the state-owned news agency in North Korea, Kim Myong Gil, an officer of the Korean People’s Army, said:
“Another thrilling nuclear thunder of Songun Korea is heavy punishment and sledgehammer blows to the US imperialists who are bringing the worst touch-and-go situation on the Korean peninsula while being carried away by ill-advised bravery.
Neglecting the strategic position of our country as a Juche-oriented nuclear power and a military power, they are bent on brigandish sanctions and stifling manoeuvres and hysteric war exercises. Today’s triumph deals another heavy blow to them, but fills us service personnel with the inexhaustible might and courage.”