North Korea unveils new tactical nuclear attack submarine

North Korea has debuted a submarine that is capable of carrying out a nuclear attack.

State media reports Kim Jong Un was present to unveil and christen the new war machine at the Sinpho shipyard on the country's east coast.

News agency KCNA said in a statement: "The submarine-launching ceremony heralded the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

Local newspaper Rodong Sinmun described the vessel as a 'tactical nuclear attack submarine' and it has been under development for several years.

Kim Jong Un was last seen inspecting the progress of the project back in 2019.

Rodong Sinmun/State Media

The outlet said North Korea has a plane to 'remodel existing medium-sized submarines into offensive ones loaded with tactical nuclear weapons to play an important role in the modern warfare'.

NK news says the submarine has been named as Hero Kim Kun Ok.

It comes after the country's dictator launched a series of missile attacks that were designed to ‘strike fear into the enemies’ of North Korea.

Back in March this year, Jong Un watched an intercontinental missile being fired thousands of miles up into the air before crashing back down into the sea.

The context for this latest test – as well as Kim’s comments – seems to be that the US and South Korea had been conducting operations together that are of a larger scale than seen in recent times.

South Korea and Japan had also entered an agreement to work together more closely with the USA on defence in the region.

State news agency KCNA said the North Korean leader supervised the missile test himself as the Hwasong-17 rocket reached a maximum altitude of 6,045 kilometres and travelled 621 miles.

The outlet said the ‘open hostility’ that was being shown to North Korea by the US and South Korea meant that the missile test was important to ‘strike fear into the enemies’.

The missile itself was launched at a high angle so that it did not impinge on other country’s territory and it landed in the sea off the eastern coast.

South Korea and Japan were watching carefully, though, and they have ascertained that the US mainland could well be in range from missiles such as these.