Tag: Kim Jong-un

Here is what North Korea is believed to have tested a couple of days ago:

 North Korea is believed to have tested a super-large multiple rocket launcher in this week’s projectile launches after reducing firing intervals for operational deployment, experts and military sources said Tuesday.

On Monday, the communist country fired two projectiles in quick succession from its eastern coastal city of Wonsan into the East Sea. They flew around 240 kilometers, reaching a maximum altitude of around 35 km, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). 

It was the first such test by the North since Nov. 28, when it launched two missiles from what is presumed to be a super-large multiple rocket launcher.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is yet another step in North Korea’s pressure campaign to get sanctions dropped for little to nothing in return:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party and discussed “important organizational and political measures and military steps to bolster up” the armed forces, state media said Sunday.

The meeting was held amid heightened tensions with the United States with Pyongyang threatening to seek a “new way” unless Washington comes up with a acceptable proposal in their nuclear negotiations by end of the year.

“Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un gave analysis and briefing on the complicated internal and external situation and said that the meeting would decide on important organizational and political measures and military steps to bolster up the overall armed forces of the country,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

“Also discussed were important issues for decisive improvement of the overall national defence and core matters for the sustained and accelerated development of military capability for self-defence,” it added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is just another example of North Korea trying to create more tension prior to the end of the year in hopes of getting a deal with the Trump administration:

The lack of courtesy shown to Kim had “prompted the waves of hatred of our people against the U.S. and the Americans and they are getting higher and higher”, Choe said.

“It would be fortunate” if Trump’s remarks were simply “an instantaneous verbal lapse, but the matter becomes different if they were a planned provocation that deliberately targeted us”, she said. 

North Korea would watch closely to see if Trump repeated the comments, Choe said. 

“If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard,” she concluded. 

Trump said on Tuesday he still had confidence in the North Korean leader but noted that Kim “likes sending rockets up”. 

“…That’s why I call him Rocket Man,” Trump told reporters at a NATO meeting in London.

Reuters

The North Koreans have never been known for their sense of humor, but clearly the President was trying to be funny.