North Korea says its nuclear weapons can reach the U.S. 
 
 By Agence France-Presse 
 
 Wednesday, February 27, 2013 5:35 EDT 
 
 North Korea warned Wednesday that the US mainland was “well within” the range of its nuclear weapons, as Pyongyang continued to ramp up the bellicose rhetoric after its recent nuclear test. 
 
 In an article posted on the official Uriminzokkiri website, a member of the Korean National Peace Committee — a propaganda body — said the North was now a “fully-independent rocket and nuclear weapons state”. 
 
 “The United States should be acutely aware that the US mainland is now well within the range of our strategic rockets and nuclear weapons,” the signed commentary said. 
 
 North Korea made a similar claim in October last year, saying it possessed rockets capable of striking the continental United States. 
 
 That was largely dismissed as bluster, but that was before Pyongyang conducted a successful long-range rocket launch in December, followed by its third nuclear test on February 12. 
 
 Although most experts believe the North has a long way to go to developing a dependable inter-continental ballistic missile, the December launch was a strong step in the right direction. 
 
 And this month’s nuclear test also fuelled concerns that North Korea is refining the technical ability to place a miniaturised nuclear warhead on a long-range missile. 
 
 After analysing debris from the rocket launch in December, the South Korean military estimated its possible range at around 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles), bringing in the west coast of the United States. 
 
 In a separate commentary Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) slammed upcoming US-South joint military drills, and warned that the Korean peninsula was “an inch away from explosion”. ||||| SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea attempted and failed to launch what experts believe was an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Friday in defiance of U.N. sanctions and in an embarrassing setback for leader Kim Jong Un, drawing criticism from major ally China. 
 
 North Korea leader Kim Jong Un smiles as he visits Sohae Space Center in Cholsan County, North Pyongan province for the testing of a new engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 9, 2016. REUTERS/KCNA 
 
 The U.S. Defense Department called the test of the road-mobile missile, which came as North Korea celebrated the birthday of Kim’s grandfather and North Korea’s founding father Kim Il Sung, a “fiery, catastrophic” failure. 
 
 The test, on North Korea’s so-called “Day of the Sun,” followed its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, which led to new U.N. sanctions that have failed to halt Pyongyang’s weapons programs. 
 
 South Korean officials and international experts said the failed test heightened the possibility that North Korea would conduct a fifth nuclear test, possibly within weeks. 
 
 The U.S.-based 38 North website, which specializes in North Korea, said there has been activity at the country’s nuclear site based on satellite imagery and on Wednesday said the possibility of a fifth nuclear test “could not be ruled out.” 
 
 U.S. officials said the missile tested on Friday never got off the launch pad but further tests were expected. 
 
 “We’re still assessing the specifics of it but I can tell you that it was a fiery, catastrophic attempt at a launch,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told a briefing. “It was not successful.” 
 
 Davis said the U.S. military thought the device was a road-mobile missile because the launch occurred at a coastal site where Pyongyang ordinarily does not test rockets. 
 
 He said North Korea, which regularly threatens to destroy South Korea and the United States and often fires missiles during periods of tension, remained a security concern in spite of the failure. 
 
 “We know that this is a capability that they are aiming towards,” he said. It’s ... a missile system that they’ve displayed on multiple occasions and that is why we have a ballistic missile defense system that we have invested in very heavily to be able to outpace that threat as that threat develops further.” 
 
 CHINA ANGERED 
 
 The White House strongly condemned the latest launch attempt and said Washington would work with China and other countries to put pressure on North Korea, which faced the prospect of further isolation. 
 
 China, North Korea’s most important economic and diplomatic backer, has been angered by Pyongyang’s nuclear tests and rocket launches and has backed U.N. sanctions. 
 
 “The firing of a mid-range ballistic missile on Friday by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), though failed, marks the latest in a string of saber-rattling that, if unchecked, will lead the country to nowhere,” China’s official Xinhua news agency said in an English language commentary. 
 
 “... Nuclear weapons will not make Pyongyang safer. On the contrary, its costly military endeavors will keep on suffocating its economy.” 
 
 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the U.N. Security Council was clear on North Korean rocket launches. 
 
 “At present, the situation on the peninsula is complex and sensitive,” he told reporters. “We hope all parties can strictly respect the decisions of the Security Council and avoid taking any steps that could further worsen tensions.” 
 
 In 2012, Kim Il Sung’s birthday was also marked by an attempted long-range rocket launch, which also failed. 
 
 The missile was likely a Musudan, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a design range of more than 3,000 km (1,800 miles) that can be fired from a road mobile launcher but which has never been flight-tested. 
 
 Experts see North Korea’s Musudan test as part of an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the mainland United States. The Musudan theoretically could reach the U.S. Pacific island of Guam. 
 
 North Korea is to hold a congress of its ruling Workers Party - the first such meeting in 36 years - in early May, at which Kim Jong Un is likely to trumpet his achievements in building up Pyongyang’s weapons prowess. 
 
 South Korean officials and experts say he will be keen to go into that with a show of strength, not a failed rocket launch, making the possibility of another nuclear test more likely. 
 
 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the ballistic rocket launch drill of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army (KPA) at an unknown location, in this undated file photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on March 11, 2016. REUTERS/KCNA/Files 
 
 In a new report on Friday, 38 North said it had seen fresh activity in satellite images of North Korea’s main nuclear complex, suggesting that reprocessing may be under way to produce more plutonium for atomic bombs.[L5N17I4IM] 
 
 38 North predicted last year that North Korea’s nuclear weapons stockpile could grow to 20, 50 or 100 bombs within five years, from an estimated 10 to 16 weapons at that time. ||||| Washington (CNN) A North Korean official reaffirmed Pyongyang's commitment to developing a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching "all the way to the East coast of the mainland US," on Monday, telling CNN that the rogue nation is currently not interested in diplomacy with the US until it achieves that goal. 
 
 The comments offer a sobering challenge to the US and the Trump administration which has offered mixed messages regarding diplomatic efforts with North Korea. 
 
 White House chief of staff John Kelly said last week that Americans should be concerned about North Korea's ability to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile, cryptically telling reporters that if the threat grows "beyond where it is today, well, let's hope that diplomacy works." 
 
 Significantly, Kelly noted that Pyongyang "is developing a pretty good nuclear re-entry vehicle." 
 
 For a missile to successfully strike a target it would have to re-enter the earth's atmosphere without breaking up. 
 
 Kelly's comments seem to indicate that the US believes that North Korea is close to achieving what would be a key breakthrough for their missile program. 
 
 The North Korean official told CNN that two additional steps are needed to achieve its goal of a reliable ICBM. 
 
 One step is an above-ground nuclear detonation , like the kind North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho threatened at the United Nations last month when he suggested leader Kim Jong Un was considering detonating "an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb " over the Pacific after Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea. 
 
 The other step is the "testing of a long-range ICBM capable of reaching Guam - and even further," the official said. 
 
 Last week, North Korean state media renewed a threat to launch missiles toward the US territory of Guam, warning that "reckless moves" by the US would compel Pyongyang to take action. 
 
 North Korea first said it was examining a plan to target the Pacific island in August after Trump warned the isolated regime would "face fire and fury like the world has never seen" following a US intelligence assessment that North Korea had produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead. 
 
 Both steps are necessary for the DPRK to send that "clear message" to the Trump administration that it possesses an effective nuclear deterrent, the North Korean official said on Monday. 
 
 The official added that one or both of these tests could possibly be timed to coincide with the US-South Korea joint naval drills, which began Monday and will last for ten days, or could possibly coincide with Trump's visit to Asia next month. 
 
 Joint military exercises are particularly infuriating to Pyongyang. The North Korean government views them as a dress rehearsal for an invasion -- even as the US insists they are purely defensive in nature. 
 
 The US will practice evacuating civilians from South Korea in its annual Courageous Channel training exercise later this month -- a routinely scheduled exercise that "prepares service members and their families to respond to a wide range of crisis management events such as non-combatant evacuation and natural or man made disasters," according to US Forces Korea. 
 
 Asked Monday if his possible visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) next month will provoke North Korea Trump said he would "take a look at that" but added he "hadn't heard in terms of provoking." 
 
 On Sunday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said his diplomatic efforts will continue as long as they possibly can despite the saber-rattling on both sides of the Pacific. 
 
 "Those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops," Tillerson said on CNN's "State of the Union." 
 
 Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of the House Foreign Affairs Committee told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Monday that he believes the US should continue to pursue diplomacy with Pyongyang but ultimately, must prevent North Korea from developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the US. 
 
 "I don't believe we can live with that possibility," he said. 
 
 North Korean anger over US 'decapitation' plan 
 
 A North Korean diplomat publicly expressed anger on Monday over reports that hackers gained access to a US-South Korean plan to "decapitate" the regime's leadership. 
 
 North Korea's deputy UN Ambassador warned that the plan is "dangerous" and an insult to the nation. 
 
 CNN has reported that the North Korea hackers stole classified military documents from a South Korean Defense ministry database in September 2016, according to Rhee Cheol-hee, a member of South Korea's National Assembly. He said the documents stolen included the South Korea-US wartime operational plan and a document that includes procedures to "decapitate" the North Korean leadership. 
 
 North Korea's deputy Ambassador Kim In Ryong told a UN committee meeting on nuclear issues that "what is more dangerous is that the US dared to formulate a plan and stage the exercise of decapitation operation and secret operation aimed at the removal of our supreme leadership." 
 
 "This is an unbearable insult to the supreme dignity of the DPRK and it arouses extreme anger from our people and service personnel," Ryong said. 
 
 The North Korean UN diplomat also fiercely defended Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. 
 
 Why North Korea wants nukes and missiles North Korea has long maintained it wants nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to deter the United States from attempting to overthrow the regime of Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang looks at states such as Iraq -- where Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the United States -- and Libya -- its late leader, Moammar Gadhafi, gave up his nuclear ambitions for sanctions relief and aid, only to be toppled and killed after the United States intervened in his country's civil unrest -- and believes that only being able to threaten the US mainland with a retaliatory nuclear strike can stop American military intervention. Many experts say they believe North Korea would not use the weapons first. Kim values his regime's survival above all else and knows the use of a nuclear weapon would start a war he could not win, analysts say. 
 
 "Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the US is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiation table under any circumstance and will never flinch even an inch from the road we have chosen, upholding the line of simultaneously developing the two fronts, the everlasting banner in safeguarding the peace," Ryong said. 
 
 "This year, we have passed the final gate of completing the state nuclear force and thus became the full- fledged nuclear power which possesses the delivery means of various ranges, including the atomic bomb, H-bomb and intercontinental ballistic rockets," he said. "The entire US mainland is within our firing range and if the US dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe." 
 
 Mixed messages 
 
 US-led efforts to apply additional diplomatic pressure on North Korea in recent months have been met with greater defiance as the Kim regime continues to march toward realizing its nuclear ambitions. 
 
 Despite assurances from Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the US continues to seek a peaceful resolution, neither side has overtly indicated that it is ready or willing to engage in serious negotiations. 
 
 Trump has repeatedly undercut comments made by his top officials and publicly engaged in a war of words with Kim that has devolved into insults and name-calling -- only raising fears of an eventual military conflict. 
 
 Trump said earlier this month that the US will "do what we must do" to prevent further threats from North Korea. 
 
 "We cannot allow this dictatorship to threaten our nation or our allies with unimaginable loss of life," he said at a meeting with top military officers. "We will do what we must do to prevent that from happening and it will be done if necessary, believe me."
– Pyongyang has a message for the US: North Korea has become a "fully-independent rocket and nuclear weapons state," according to an official website—and America "should be acutely aware that the US mainland is now well within the range of our strategic rockets and nuclear weapons." How credible is the warning? Experts say it could be awhile before the North actually has an intercontinental ballistic missile ready, AFP notes. But debris from December's rocket launch suggested its possible range included the US West Coast, according to South Korea. Closer to home, Pyongyang is fuming over planned US-South Korea military drills. The Korean peninsula is "an inch away from explosion," official news warns. "The US is to blame for the situation on the Korean peninsula, which is inching close to an unpredictable phase now," said Pyongyang's UN ambassador, according to Reuters. Washington is pushing a "hostile policy" against the North via the UN Security Council, the official said.