North Korea Claims to Have Tested Its First Intercontinental Ballistic Missile: North Korea on Tuesday claimed it successfully test-launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, a potential game-changing development in what may be the world’s most dangerous nuclear standoff and, if true, a direct rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump’s earlier declaration that such a test “won’t happen!”

In typically heated rhetoric, North Korea’s Academy of Defense Science said the test of an ICBM — the Hwasong-14 — marked the “final step” in creating a “confident and powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on Earth.”

Unless outsiders retrieve parts of the missile, it will be difficult to confirm many details. North Korea’s weapons program is perhaps the most closely held state secret in one of the world’s most suspicious nations. U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials earlier assessed that the North fired an intermediate-range missile into waters near Japan.

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North Korea Claims to Have Tested Its First Intercontinental Ballistic Missile: North Korea on Tuesday claimed it successfully test-launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, a potential game-changing development in what may be the world’s most dangerous nuclear standoff and, if true, a direct rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump’s earlier declaration that such a test “won’t happen!”In typically heated rhetoric, North Korea’s Academy of Defense Science said the test of an ICBM — the Hwasong-14 — marked the “final step” in creating a “confident and powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on Earth.”Unless outsiders retrieve parts of the missile, it will be difficult to confirm many details. North Korea’s weapons program is perhaps the most closely held state secret in one of the world’s most suspicious nations. U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials earlier assessed that the North fired an intermediate-range missile into waters near Japan.