SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted a launching drill of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to show its "toughest retaliation will and overwhelming strength" against mounting military threats from the United States and South Korea, the country's state news agency said Tuesday.
The DPRK test-fired an ICBM called "Hwasongpho-18," which traveled up to a maximum altitude of 6,518.2 km and flew a distance of 1,002.3 km for 4,415 seconds before accurately landing on a preset area in the eastern open waters off the Korean Peninsula, according to a report by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which did not disclose the exact launching time or place.
The launching drill was conducted in response to the second Nuclear Consultative Group meeting the United States and South Korea convened late last week in Washington during which the two countries showed an open intent to conduct large-scale joint drills under the simulated conditions of an actual war of "nuclear retaliatory strike" against the DPRK and again cried out for the "end of its regime," said the KCNA.
The test-firing was also a countermeasure against the U.S. move to deploy its nuclear-powered Missouri submarine to the peninsula in the immediate aftermath of the Washington meeting, it added.
The KCNA also said the latest maneuver served as yet another verification of the rapid response posture of the DPRK's strategic armed forces and the reliability of the most powerful strategic core striking means of the DPRK military.
Having watched the drill on the spot, Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the DPRK, expressed his "great satisfaction" with the missile performance and stressed that "the drill once again and strikingly displayed the DPRK's will for toughest counteraction and its overwhelming strength," said the report.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said Monday, citing the country's Joint Chiefs of Staff, that a long-range missile was fired from the Pyongyang area at 8:24 a.m. local time that day (2324 GMT Sunday). ■
