In its 2021 Annual Threat Assessment Report, Washington acknowledged that Pyongyang "probably possesses the expertise to cause temporary, limited disruptions of some critical infrastructure networks" across the United States.
The step will bring Iran closer to the 90 percent purity threshold for military use and shorten its potential "breakout time" to build an atomic bomb -- a goal the Islamic republic denies.
In a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, senior foreign ministry official Jo Chol Su said the test was of a new "tactical guided missile".