North Korea held a massive parade on Saturday where they boasted their military hardware and personnel to celebrate the birthday of the country’s late founder. Kim Jong Un was in attendance of the country’s biggest holiday to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung.
The display took place at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang and it advertised much military arsenal including new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the country’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles for the first time. There were several KN-08 missiles rolled out on trucks at the parade, which experts believe the missiles could one day have capabilities of hitting the United States. However, North Korea has yet to flight test them. The KN-11 also known as the Pukkuksong-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile was featured in the parade as well.
Massive parade shows off North Korea's expanding array of ballistic missiles amid rising tensions in the region https://t.co/KRHEGaCM9Q pic.twitter.com/v0vZHVqdcn
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 15, 2017
From the Diplomat:
We saw a larger missile, possibly a variant of the long-discussed KN-08 or KN-14 intercontinental ballistic missile (both theoretically capable of reaching most of the U.S. homeland with a reasonable payload). This missile, which remains untested to this day, was shown off with a new color scheme like the Musudan and, oddly enough, on board a TEL truck that appeared almost identical to the Musudan’s. It’s unclear if North Korea may have attempted to test this KN-08/KN-14 variant at some point — possibly late last year at Kusong, when U.S. and South Korean monitoring picked up two failed tests that exploded shortly after launch.
There was much speculation that Pyongyang would use the holiday to perform the nation’s sixth nuclear test or a significant rocket launch, such as its first flight test of an ICBM. However, no tests or missiles were launched. North Korea did fire off a promise of nuclear war if provoked by the United States.
Choe Ryong Hae, a close aide to Kim Jong-un, addressed the packed square and made this proclamation.
“If the United States wages reckless provocation against us, our revolutionary power will instantly counter with annihilating strike, and we will respond to all-out war with all-out war and to nuclear war with our style of nuclear strike warfare.”
This isn’t the first time that North Korea has threaten the U.S. with nuclear war.
Pyongyang also warned the U.S. to stop with the “military hysteria” and if North Korea is attacked the United States would face a “merciless retaliatory strike.”
On Friday, Pyongyang said that U.S. military bases in South Korea would be “pulverized” in minutes if the United States attempted to attack North Korea. U.S. countered with their own parade of military might with a display of the Air Force’s 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base in Japan.
The U.S. has sent an armada headed by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to waters off the Korean Peninsula.
https://twitter.com/RightWingLawman/status/851088525122355202
“We are sending an armada. Very powerful. We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. That I can tell you,” President Donald Trump told Fox Business Network.
On Friday, North Korea’s vice foreign minister Han Song-ryol said President Trump’s “aggressive” tweets were “making trouble” and creating a “vicious cycle” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
“We are comparing Trump’s policy toward the DPRK with the former administrations and we have concluded that it’s becoming more vicious and more aggressive,” he said. “If the U.S. comes with reckless military maneuvers then we will confront it with the DPRK’s pre-emptive strike. We’ve got a powerful nuclear deterrent already in our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed.”
On Friday, China warned both nations to stop banging the war drums “to prevent irreversible damage to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called President Trump and urged him to seek a “peaceful resolution.”
Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe warned that North Korea might be capable of firing sarin-loaded missiles toward Japan.
Vice President Pence plans will visit South Korea on Saturday.
Stay tuned.
[Newsweek/TheHill/Telegraph/BusinessInsider]
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