North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country’s launch this week of an intercontinental ballistic missile sends a warning that Pyongyang would respond with a nuclear attack if provoked by its enemies with nuclear weapons, Report informs, citing Bloomberg.
The launch speaks to North Korea’s doctrine that it will “not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if enemies provoke us with nuclear weapons,” Kim told a missile unit, according to a report from the state’s official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday.
Pyongyang has made similar threats on a regular basis, warning in October after the US deployed an aircraft carrier group to South Korea that it was ready to use nuclear weapons if it believed an attack was imminent.
North Korea fired the Hwasong-18 that splashed down west of Japan’s main northern island of Hokkaido on Monday in its fifth ICBM test this year. The class of missile is considered the most powerful in its arsenal and designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.
The launches coincided with talks between the US and South Korea on deepening cooperation in deterring Kim from using nuclear weapons. In November, North Korea launched a satellite into orbit, moving Kim closer to his key policy goal of deploying an array of reconnaissance probes to keep an eye on US forces in the region.