Pyongyang releases footage of missile test condemned by UN

UN General Assembly

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea releases footage of its latest missile test.

State-run television broadcast the video, including images of Kim Jong-Un during the launch. CGTN’s Toby Muse reports from Washington.

The DPRK vowed to complete its nuclear weapons program even as the international community scrambled to defuse the deepening crisis.

DPRK leader Kim Jong Un said his country is close to obtaining “a capacity for nuclear counterattack the U.S. cannot cope with,” in comments reported by the Korean Central News Agency. This came a day after the DPRK launched an intermediate Hwasong-12 missile that flew 37-hundred kilometers, passing over northern Japan.

People watch a TV screen showing a local news program reporting about North Korea’s missile launch, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

The U.N. Security Council called the launch “highly provocative.” The U.S. has urged stricter sanctions on the DPRK, including on sales of oil to the isolated country. China and Russia have balked at this. China has insisted that both the DPRK and the U.S. must make concessions to lessen the standoff.

Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai said that a first step by the U.S. would be an end to threats against the DPRK. China has suggested the U.S. should stop its military exercises close to the DPRK as one way to get Pyongyang to end its nuclear program.

All major powers agree a nuclear-armed DPRK only creates more instability to an already volatile region of the world. “I don’t think nuclear weapons will bring security to the DPRK or to South Korea or to anybody. It will only make things worse. We are opposed to the existence of nuclear weapons anywhere on the Korean peninsula…anywhere,” explained the Chinese Ambassador.

The tension is ratcheting up every week, and a solution appears as far away as ever.