<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his daughter, personally oversaw the recent test-firing of the country's most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, state media images showed Friday.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The launch on Thursday -- Pyongyang's second ICBM test this year -- involved a Hwasong-17 missile, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, adding that it was fired in response to "frantic" US-South Korea joint military drills.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Photographs in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim watching the black-and-white Hwasong-17 -- dubbed a "monster missile" by analysts -- blast off into the sky.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some of the images showed him watching the launch with his daughter -- never named by state media but identified as his second child Ju Ae by South Korean intelligence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">State media also released images showing the Earth from space, purportedly taken by a camera mounted on the ICBM.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">KCNA said the launch "confirmed the war readiness of the ICBM unit", adding that it "had no negative impact on the security" of neighbouring countries.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">South Korea had previously said the missile was fired on a lofted trajectory -- up instead of out, typically done to avoid overflying neighbouring countries.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last year, North Korea declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear power, and Kim recently called for an "exponential" increase in weapons production, including tactical nukes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Overseeing the Thursday launch, Kim said North Korea would "react to nuclear weapons with nukes" and called for "irreversibly bolstering up the nuclear war deterrent", according to KCNA.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He also highlighted the country's "rapid response posture... to cope with any armed conflict and war", KCNA said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- ICBM threat -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In theory, the Hwasong-17 ICBM can reach the continental United States, and with this latest launch, North Korea is trying to emphasise the advanced level of its weaponry, analysts said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"With the photos of the Earth, Pyongyang seems to be trying to show that it can accurately hit any target the regime wants with its ICBM," Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next step will likely be North Korea firing the missile "at a normal angle", he said, which would demonstrate it can survive reentry into the atmosphere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Thursday launch -- Pyongyang's third show of force this week -- came as Tokyo and Seoul sought to thaw long-frozen ties to counter an increasingly aggressive North Korea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol flew to Japan Thursday to meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the first such summit in 12 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">North Korea fired two cruise missiles from a submarine on Sunday, followed by two short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, as South Korea and the United States staged major military drills.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The allies have ramped up defence cooperation in the face of growing military and nuclear threats from North Korea, which has conducted a series of increasingly provocative banned weapons tests in recent months.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The fact (that) North Korea has almost normalised ICBM tests over the last year is a concern," Joseph Dempsey, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told AFP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soo Kim, a former CIA Korea analyst, said that Kim's regime "has essentially desensitised the international community to its weapons tests," she told AFP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We've reached a point where an ICBM test draws no greater attention than a short-range missile test," she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We'll continue to see North Korea advancing and expanding its suite of weapons capabilities in the days to come." AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>