North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had called for an improvement in the country’s nuclear attack capability and ordered more tests after watching the launch of two short-range missiles on Thursday.
“Dear comrade Kim Jong Un said work ... must be strengthened to improve nuclear attack capability,” Pyongyan’s state news agency KCNA said on Friday, AFP reported.
It added that Kim had issued instructions for “combat tasks to continue ... tests to assess the power of newly developed nuclear warheads and tests to improve nuclear attack capability.”
Just a day earlier, the North launched two short-range ballistic missiles from the eastern part of the country which fell into the East Sea (Sea of Japan) shortly afterwards.
KCNA said Thursday’s launch was part of a nuclear strike exercise, whose aim was to simulate conditions for “exploding nuclear warheads from the preset altitude above targets in the ports under enemy control”.
Watching the exercise, Kim reiterated an earlier threat to launch an immediate nuclear attack if annual joint military drills, which the “saber-rattling” South Korea and US started on Monday, should harm “even a single tree or a blade of grass” on North Korean territory, state media said.
Since the military exercises began, expanded this year in response to the North’s nuclear test, Pyongyang has issued daily warnings and statements, talking up its nuclear strike capabilities and threatening to turn Seoul and Washington into “flames and ashes”.
