US sole target of nuclear programme: N Korean Official

Moscow [Russia], Nov 29 (ANI): A senior North Korean official has stated that its nuclear weapons programme was intended only for the United States and the Asian countries were safe.

However, the deputy of the Supreme People's Assembly insisted that the Asian countries were safe provided they did not provoke North Korea.

Sputnik quoted a deputy assemblyman of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), which holds over 90 per cent of the assembly seats in the country, as saying, during the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in Turkey earlier in November, "Today's reality shows that our obtaining of nuclear [weapons] shatters the US ambition to secure its supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region and safeguards peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and its region."

On Wednesday, North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile in the direction of the Sea of Japan.

The missile "flew eastward from the vicinity of Pyongyang" toward the Sea of Japan, South Korean military officials said.

It was fired in the middle of the night (local time), a US official said to Fox News, which seemed to have landed within exclusive economic zone of Japan.

Japan's Prime Minister's Office said: "North Korea launched a missile that has the possibility of arriving in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of our country."

This is North Korea's first missile attack since September 15 when it fired an intermediate-range missile, which flew over Hokkaido Island in Japan before and into the Pacific Ocean.

"South Korean unification minister Cho Myoung-gyon told foreign correspondents in Seoul on Tuesday that North Korea was on the verge of achieving full nuclear capability with an intercontinental ballistic missile that could carry a nuclear warhead," Fox news quoted a local news agency.

The missile travelled about 1000 km before splashing into the Sea of Japan, said the Pentagon.

The missile fire comes a day after United States President Donald Trump in a summit meeting with Prime Minister Abe extended support to Japan and said, "the United States of America is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 per cent." (ANI)

This story has not been edited. It has been published as provided by ANI