North Korea worked through 2016 on developing components for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), making the isolated nation’s claim that it is close to a test-launch plausible, weapons experts say.
Once fully developed, a North Korean ICBM could threaten the continental United States about 9,000km away.
Pyongyang’s state media regularly threatens the US with a nuclear strike, but before 2016, North Korea had been assumed to be a long way from being capable of doing so.
“The bottom line is, Pyongyang is much further along in their missile development than most people realise,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the US-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.
