North Korea claims it is sending 250 new tactical ballistic missile launchers toward its border with South Korea, in the latest bellicose declaration by leader Kim Jong Un against its neighbor. <\/p>\n
Photographs published by the North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun showed what appears to be vehicle-based missile launchers, with dozens of large green military trucks lined up in neat rows before Kim. <\/p>\n
In an elaborate and orchestrated ceremony on Sunday night, a crowd of spectators cheered as vehicles rolled past and fireworks shot into the sky. <\/p>\n
Kim personally oversaw the transfer of equipment to military commanders and chiefs of staff, and delivered a speech claiming the new missile launchers were built with North Korean technology, state media reported. <\/p>\n
He added that the display is the first stage of planned missile force construction for the North\u2019s military border units. <\/p>\n
\u201cDialogue or confrontation can be our choice, but what we must be more thoroughly prepared for is confrontation,\u201d Kim said, adding it was the \u201ckeynote of our policy toward the US that we have consistently maintained.\u201d <\/p>\n
North Korea will make it clear that \u201cif the US ignores our repeated warnings and continues to attempt to undermine the security of the region, it will have dire consequences for its own security,\u201d the dictator added. <\/p>\n
The border between North and South Korea is already one of the most militarized in the world, and Pyongyang has long claimed that it has huge amounts of artillery and military hardware pointed south. <\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s display in Pyongyang comes during a summer of heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea entering into a new military \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d with Russia in June. <\/p>\n
While the photos appear to show dozens of green transporter-erector launcher vehicles, and trucks equipped with missile launchers positioned behind the driver\u2019s cab, it\u2019s unclear if any of the vehicles had functioning missiles during Sunday\u2019s event. <\/p>\n
Joseph Dempsey, research associate for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said on Monday it was difficult to assess if any of the missiles were loaded at the ceremony \u2013 but \u201cit would seem unlikely and illogical based on practicality and safety.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added that the launcher\u2019s design and terminology is \u201cassociated with the Hwasong-11D, a short-range ballistic missile which North Korea claims can be armed with a tactical nuclear warhead.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAssuming all 250 launchers are functional it\u2019s unclear if North Korea has produced the corresponding capacity of 1,000 missiles (and beyond),\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s highly improbable at least that North Korea has anywhere near that number of tactical nuclear warheads.\u201d <\/p>\n
Since conducting its first nuclear test more than a decade ago, North Korea has advanced its weapons capabilities, with the ambition of miniaturizing a warhead so that it can fit on a long-range missile. <\/p>\n
Experts say North Korea has likely already manufactured a small stockpile of nuclear warheads \u2013 but it remains unproven whether it has been able to make them small and light enough to be fitted on a missile. <\/p>\n
North Korea\u2019s ability to deploy a nuclear warhead on any kind of missile is unproven. <\/p>\n
Pyongyang had warned late last year that it would deploy new military hardware along the military demarcation line that separates it from the South, after Seoul partially pulled back from a 2018 agreement designed to ease tensions along the border. <\/p>\n
But any goodwill generated by the agreement has evaporated in recent years, and both countries have now officially abandoned it. <\/p>\n
Kim, who did not get the concessions he wanted from the US and South Korea during subsequent talks after 2018, has since ramped up the North\u2019s ballistic missile program, pledging to give Pyongyang a nuclear deterrent like that possessed by Washington. <\/p>\n
In response to the North Korean buildup, the US and South Korea \u2013 along with Japan \u2013 have stepped up their military cooperation via exercises and deployments that Pyongyang sees as a threat. <\/p>\n
There have been at least three incidents of South Korea firing warning shots since May after North Korean military personnel crossed the demarcation line, the midpoint of the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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