North Korea is set to test-fire a new "high range" missile capable of hitting the US mainland, a Russian lawmaker claims.
Anton
Morozov revealed Pyongyang's plans as he returned from a five-day visit
to the hermit state - where the mood is "rather belligerent" - with a
Russian delegation.
He claims North Korean officials gave the
Russians mathematical calculations showing that the intercontinental
ballistic missile could reach targets on the US west coast.
It comes just days after a CIA official revealed that Kim Jong-un's regime could launch a new missile or carry out another nuclear test next week.
North Korea has carried out a number of missile tests recently despite UN sanctions
(Image: AFP)
Morozov told the Russian state-run news agency
RIA Novosti: "They are preparing for a new test of a longer-range missile.
"They
even gave us mathematical calculations that they believe prove that
their missile can hit the western coast of the United States."
He
described the mood in Pyongyang as "rather belligerent", adding: "In
the near future, they are going to carry out, as far as we understand,
yet another launch of a missile, but this time with a longer range."
He
was part of a Russian delegation which made an official visit to
Pyongyang this week to discuss bilateral cooperation with the Russian
ambassador to North Korea, the English-language state-run
Sputnik news agency reported.
Kim Jong-un is pictured in a photo released after his regime's last nuclear test
(Image: Barcroft Media)
Morozov, a member of the Russian State Duma Committee on
International Affairs, has called for a prompt intervention in the
situation on the Korean peninsula to avoid a new war.
Earlier this week, Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the
CIA's
Korea Mission Center, revealed that North Korea's latest provocation
could come on Tuesday when it celebrates the founding of the Workers'
Party of Korea.
Many past nuclear or missile tests have coincided with mass public celebrations.
A
test would coincide with Japan's lower house election campaigns and the
Columbus Day holiday in the US. Given the time difference, it would be
Monday in the US if a missile or nuclear test occurs in Pyongyang on
Tuesday morning.
Despite UN sanctions, North Korea has recently carried out an
underground nuclear test and test-fired two missiles over northern
Japan, with both crashing into the Pacific Ocean.
Nicholas Kristof, a
New York Times
op-ed columnist who recently returned to Pyongyang for a visit, wrote
that North Korea is galvanising its citizens to expect a nuclear war
with the US.
Billboards in the capital show missiles destroying the US Capitol in Washington, DC, he added.
Pyongyang
resident Mun Hyok-myong, a teacher, told Mr Kristof during a visit to
an amusement park: “If we have to go to war, we won’t hesitate to
totally destroy the United States."
A new report by the website
38 North,
which monitors Pyongyang's activities, has suggested that a North
Korean nuclear attack on Seoul and Tokyo could kill more than two
million people and injure nearly eight million others.
North
Korea's state-run news agency, KCNA, reported on Friday that the
country's National Peace Committee (NPC) has called on the US to pull
its troops out of South Korea.
US forces have been stationed in the South since the Korean War.
The
committee said the 64-year-old South Korea-US Status of Forces
Agreement (SOFA) was an "aggressive and traitorous war document"
allowing the US to control the South's army, South Korea's state-run
Yonhap News Agency reported.
The NPC said the agreement is a symbol of "US military occupation"
and it has "reduced South Korea into advanced base for a nuclear war".
It added that South Koreans cannot evade a nuclear war as long as US troops are based in their country.
The
North and South are technically still at war, as the conflict in the
1960s ended with an armistice and no peace treaty has ever been signed.
This news comes amid a report that states North Korea
has a terrifying biological weapons programme capable of wiping out
tens of thousands of troops and civilians if war breaks out.
Experts
fear the rogue state has developed and stored more than a dozen killer
agents that could be fired into South Korea or further if Kim Jong-un ’s regime is threatened.
Among
the illnesses it may be able to deliver by missile, bomb or
plane-sprayer are Anthrax, Smallpox, the Plague, Botulism, Cholera,
Typhoid, Yellow Fever, Dystentry and Typhus.
There are even many of the killer bio-agents have been
tested on human beings, whilst Kim Jong-un’s laboratory technicians are
forced to work without protection.
Researchers at intelligence
company AMPLYFI teamed up with Harvard in America to harvest the dark
web for information about Pyongyang’s 50 year-old bio-weapons programme.
Using
an artificial intelligence tool called DataVoyant researchers mined
840,000 websites that contained biological references and 23,000 were
found to have links to North Korea.
In their report called North
Korea’s Biological Weapons Program, researchers also say image analysis
of Pyongyang’s Bio-technical Institute suggests it could “produce
military-style batches of biological weapons - specifically anthrax.”
It
continues: “The most recent statement by the South Korean Defence
Ministry is that ‘North Korea has 13 types of biological weapons which
it can weaponise withing ten days.
“And anthrax and smallpox are the likely agents it would deploy."
Meanwhile,
the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which is seeking a ban on
nuclear arms.
Berit Reiss-Andersen, the leader of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee, said: "We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons
being used is greater than it has been for a long time.
"Some
states are modernising their nuclear arsenals, and there is a real
danger that more countries will try to procure nuclear weapons, as
exemplified by North Korea."
Beatrice Fihn, the executive
director of ICAN, a coalition of grassroots non-government groups, said
in response to rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and the war of
words between Kim and US President Donald Trump: "Nuclear weapons are
illegal. Threatening to use nuclear weapons is illegal.
"Having nuclear weapons, possessing nuclear weapons, developing nuclear weapons, is illegal, and they need to stop."
North Korea's nuclear and missile tests in 2017
February 11: New medium-range Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) ballistic missile launched into Sea of Japan, travelling 310 miles.
March 6: Five medium-range Scud-er ballistic missiles launched into the Sea of Japan, with four travelling more than 600 miles.
March 21: Mobile-launched missile explodes moments after launch in failed test.
April 4: Medium-range KN-17 ballistic missile test-fired into the Sea of Japan, travelling just 34 miles after spinning out of control.
April 15: KN-17 missile explodes almost immediately after take-off.
April 28: KN-17 missile travels just 21 miles before breaking apart in mid-air.
May 14: Missile, believed to be a KN-17, flies about 480 miles before crashing into the Sea of Japan.
May 21: Another KN-17 test, with the projectile travelling more than 300 miles into the same sea.
May 29: A short-range ballistic missile was tracked for six minutes before landing in the sea.
June 8: Anti-ship missiles fired into the Sea of Japan.
July 4:
North Korea tests its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a
Hwasong-14 which crashed into the Sea of Japan after travelling about
580 miles.
July 28: Another ICBM is test-fired,
flying 621 miles for 45 minutes - the longest flight of a ballistic
missile fired by North Korea - before crashing into the sea inside
Japan's Economic Exclusion Zone.
August 26: Three short-range ballistic missiles are test-fired, with the second blowing up within seconds and the third failing in flight.
August 29:
North Korea fires a KN-17 over northern Japan - sparking evacuations
and air raid sirens in towns - and it travels 1,667 miles before
breaking apart.
September 3: Pyongyang carries
out its sixth test of a nuclear weapon, claiming it was a hydrogen bomb,
causing a 6.3-magnitude earthquake. Experts say the device was up to
eight times more powerful than the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima in
1945.
September 15: Another ballistic missile -
the 14th missile test of the year - is fired over northern Japan, this
time flying for about 2,300 miles before hitting the sea.
US ‘unwilling, unable’ to respond to N. Korea – author