North Korea confirmed on Friday that it had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Sea of ​​Japan the day before. a show of force personally accompanied by leader Kim Jong-un and his daughter.

the rocket, named Hwasong-17, was released on Thursday response to the joint military exercises between the United States and South KoreaNorth Korea’s official agency, KCNA, said it described these maneuvers as “provocative and aggressive”.

Images released by state media show the North Korean leader kim jong-un supervising the launch of the Hwasong-17 missile with his daughter, increasingly present in the regime’s official narrative. They both appear viewing some pictures of Earth from space, supposedly taken by a camera installed on the rocket.

Although the official media never gave any details about her, South Korean intelligence identified her as the second daughter of North Korean leader Ju Ae.

KCNA noted that the missile was a maximum altitude of 6,000 km and a distance of 1,000 km covered “before landing accurately in the pre-selected area in open water.”

The agency assured that the launch “confirmed the war readiness of the ICBM unit” and stressed that the shot had “no negative impact on the security of neighboring countries”. According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missile was fired with an upward trajectory, not outward, which prevented it from flying over adjacent lands.

It is the third show of power since Sundayand also coincides with the largest joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States in five years.

The new launch came hours before the leaders of South Korea and Japan meet in tokyo for discuss, among other things, Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

Fight “any war”

Kim said at the launch on Thursday that Pyongyang “will respond with nuclear weapons to nuclear weapons”, and called for “irreversible strengthening of nuclear deterrence,” according to the KCNA news agency.

The leader also stressed “the rapid reaction capacity of the North (…) to face any armed conflict and any war”. North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power last year.or, and recently Kim called for an “exponential” increase in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.

Dubbed the “monster missile” by military analysts, the Hwasong-17 could theoretically hit the continental United States. With this shot, Pyongyang wants to demonstrate the progress of its weapon systems, analysts believe.

“With these pictures of the Earth, Pyongyang seems to want to show that it is capable of accurately hitting any target designated by the regime with its ballistic missiles,” Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute told AFP.

Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst in charge of Korea, believes that the Kim Jong Un regime is already accustomed to the international community based on so many trials.

“We’ve reached a point where an ICBM test is no more surprising than a short-range missile test,” he said.

“In the coming days, we will continue to see how North Korea progresses and expands the range of its weapons capabilities,” he said.