North Korea fires two short-range missiles into sea: South Korea

Mar 10, 2016, 11:07

The newspaper said Kim met his nuclear scientists for a briefing on the status of their work and declared he was greatly pleased that warheads had been standardized and miniaturized for use on ballistic missiles.

This is the first time Mr Kim has directly mentioned the previously reported claims of miniaturised nuclear warheads, which have been questioned by some security experts.

Tension in the region was already high as South Korean and USA troops began large-scale military exercises on Monday in a test of their defenses against North Korea, which called the drills "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive.

North Korea fires short-range ballistic missiles into sea
North Korea hates the massive annual military drills staged by Seoul and Washington, calling them invasion preparations. North Korea dabbled with nuclear tests in January, which the capital Pyongyang says were hydrogen bomb experiments.

North Korea was hit with sanctions by the United Nations after the country conducted a nuclear test on January 6 and launched a long-range rocket on February 6.

On Tuesday South Korea announced further measures aimed at isolating the North by blacklisting individuals and entities that it said were linked to Pyongyang's weapons program.

North Korea's apparent goal is to develop nuclear missiles that could reach the continental U.S. Judging from the speed of progress made by other nuclear-armed countries, Pyongyang is believed to have the capability to put warheads on short-range missiles that can hit South Korea. "I appeal to both the South and the North to consider the companies' interests and allow us to come to the North and wrap things up", Jeong told AFP. There's more to do in South Korea's heavily forested Rocket Valley, just a few miles from the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, than fire rockets.

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"We will completely liquidate all assets of South Korean firms and related institutions left behind in our region", the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.

The round object shown in the photos appears to be a model of a warhead trigger device which would contain uranium or plutonium, according to nuclear expert Whang Joo-ho of Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

The miniaturisation issue is key because, while North Korea is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear weapons, its ability to deliver them accurately to a target on the tip of a ballistic missile has been a subject of heated debate.

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