Kim Jong-un announces upgrade after missile test - and delivers bizarre leather jacket video

Created: 03/29/2022, 10:12 am

By: Linus Prien

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un presented himself in a video during a missile test.

He then announced the further armament of North Korea.

Pyongyang - A few days after testing a new kind of ballistic intercontinental ballistic missile, North Korea's ruler Kim Jong-un announced that his country would be further upgraded.

North Korea can only contain and control the "imperialist threats and blackmail if it is equipped with tremendous clout and overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone," Kim said on Monday, according to the state news agency KCNA.

The missile test was captured in a propaganda video.

The video shows Kim Jong-un in a leather jacket supervising the rocket launch.

North Korea has resumed weapons testing

"We will continue to pursue the goal of strengthening national defense capabilities," Kim added.

He said he was reportedly speaking at a meeting with workers involved in the recent missile test.

Kim personally oversaw Thursday's test launch of a new type of Hwasong-17 ICBM, according to KCNA.

At the end of 2017, the North Korean army conducted several tests with a Hwasong-15 ICBM.

After that, North Korea, which is internationally isolated because of its nuclear weapons program, refrained from further tests of ICBMs.

Since January, however, the leadership in Pyongyang had hinted that it could lift its self-imposed moratorium on such tests. 

North Korea: International reactions to the missile tests

The United States has called for tightening UN sanctions against Pyongyang after the latest North Korean missile test.

"The United States urges all member states to fully implement existing Security Council resolutions," US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Friday during a session of the UN's highest body.

Because of North Korea's "increasingly dangerous provocations", the US would introduce a resolution in the Security Council to "update and strengthen the sanctions regime" decided in 2017.

At that time it was decided that further measures would be taken in the event of a renewed test of an ICBM.

"That's exactly what happened.

Therefore, now is the time to take these measures,” emphasized Thomas-Greenfield.

However, China urged “prudence and reason”.

"Neither party should take measures that would lead to greater tensions," said China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun. Russia warned against tightening sanctions.

These would go "beyond the scope of cutting off funding" for North Korea's missile and nuclear programs and "pose unacceptable socio-economic and humanitarian problems to the North Korean people."

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