North Korea said on Friday it had tested an unmanned underwater nuclear attack device capable of unleashing a “radioactive tsunami” and blamed US and South Korean military exercises for deteriorating regional security.
This week, Pyongyang also carried out military drills, including testing a new underwater nuclear missile delivery system, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA reported.
“This underwater nuclear attack device can be placed on any coast and port or towed by a surface vessel,” KCNA said.
The purpose of the device is to “stealthily infiltrate operational waters and produce a large-scale radioactive tsunami… to destroy enemy naval strike groups and key operational ports,” it added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised the tests, according to KCNA. The agency also reported that Pyongyang on Wednesday fired strategic cruise missiles “equipped with a test warhead that simulates a nuclear warhead.”
However, some analysts questioned the North Korean claims.
The idea that Pyongyang has “a nuclear-capable underwater warhead should be viewed with skepticism,” said Professor Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul.
In a post on the social network Twitter, the American analyst Ankit Panda did not rule out that the accusation about the test was an “attempted deception / psychological maneuver”.
Still, the accusation “is shocking,” Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute told Agence France-Presse news agency.
If true, it is hard to see how Seoul “could respond to such an incredible new North Korean weapon that can completely destroy South Korea’s main operating ports,” he said.
Source: TSF
