30 August 2016

News Story: S.Korea's ruling party offers to deploy nuclear-power submarine

SEOUL, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's ruling party asked the military authorities on Monday to review special countermeasures including the deployment of a nuclear-powered submarine to fundamentally contain submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Rep. Chung Jin-suk, Saenuri Party floor leader, said at a party meeting that the DPRK's SLBM launch is a severe threat to security in South Korea and Northeast Asia as it is harder to detect where SLBMs are fired than ground-based missiles.

His comments came after the DPRK test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine off its east coast on Aug. 24. Seoul's military said the missile flew about 500 km toward Japan, surpassing the flight distance of 300 km which South Korean defense ministry regards as a success.

A completed SLBM technology would raise the DPRK's nuclear threat to a new level as it is very hard to detect and track a DPRK missile from a submarine moving secretly deep under the waters.

Read the full story at Xinhua