CNN
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to build the “most powerful nuclear force in the world”, the official KCNA news agency reported on Sunday.
The “ultimate goal” behind North Korea’s nuclear program was to possess “absolute strength, unparalleled in the century”, Kim said on Saturday as part of an order promoting dozens of military officials, the report reported. ‘agency.
The order comes after what North Korea called a “test-firing of a new type” of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 18.
The missile was a Hwaseong-17, according to KCNA, a huge rocket that is theoretically capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States.
Kim praised officials who developed the new missile in his comments.
He called the missile “the world’s most powerful strategic weapon” and said it represented “a tremendous leap forward in the development of technology for mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.”
With the development of the new ICBM, Kim said North Korea has demonstrated to the world “the confident and ever-victorious future of our state as it moves towards the goal of building the strongest military in the world.”
In a letter recently sent to Kim, scientists from North Korea’s Academy of Defense Sciences said the test firing marked a “great historic victory” for the country and demonstrated North Korea’s sovereignty. .
Kim himself assisted the launch with a child who would be his daughter, Ju Ae.
Pyongyang also released video of the missile launch, only the third time since 2017. according to Ankit Panda, Senior Fellow of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
While the test did To display Pyongyang can launch a large ICBM and hold it in the air for more than an hour, North Korea has yet to demonstrate its ability to place a warhead atop a long-range ballistic missile – projectiles that are fired into space – able to survive fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
But analysts say that with repeated testing, the North Koreans are honing their capabilities.