North Korea is not banned from developing cruise missiles it has previously tested.
Seoul:
North Korea tested a new “long-range cruise missile” over the weekend, state media reported on Monday, calling it a “strategic weapon of great importance”, amid a long standoff with the United States over its nuclear program. . .
Photos from the Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a missile in a flame ball with one of five tubes on a launch vehicle and a missile in horizontal flight.
The United States military said Sunday that North Korea’s missile tests over the weekend posed a “threat” to the country’s neighbors and beyond.
The US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement using the North’s official name, “This activity is focused on developing the DPRK’s own military program and addressing threats to its neighbors and the international community.” “
Analysts said such weapons would represent a marked advancement in the North’s weapons technology, with the South or Japan being better able to evade defense systems to deliver weapons.
The official Korean Central News Agency said the tests took place on Saturday and Sunday.
According to KCNA, the missiles traveled 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles) of flight paths—including figure-of-8 patterns—to hit their targets over North Korea and its territorial waters.
Its report called the missile a “strategic weapon of great importance”, the tests were successful and gave the country “another effective deterrent” against “hostile forces”.
The North is subject to international sanctions for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, which it says it needs to defend against US aggression.
But Pyongyang is not banned from developing cruise missiles, which it has previously tested.
Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Iwa Women’s University, told AFP that the missile, as reported, was “considerable a threat”.
“If the North has significantly reduced the nuclear warhead, it could also be loaded onto a cruise missile,” Park said.
“It is very likely that there will be further tests for the development of different weapon systems.”
He said the launch was a response to a South Korea-US joint military exercise last month.
But Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is in Seoul on Tuesday and Park said: “By choosing cruise missiles, North Korea is trying not to provoke the US and China too much.”
Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies tweeted that the reported missiles would be capable of delivering warheads against targets “all over South Korea and Japan”.
“The intermediate-range ground-attack cruise missile has very serious potential for North Korea,” he said.
“This is another system designed to fly missile defense radars at or near them.”
The South’s military – usually the North’s first source of information on missile tests – did not announce any launches over the weekend.
“Our military is conducting a detailed analysis under close cooperation between South Korean and US intelligence agencies,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told AFP.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘Very upset’
The reported launch is the first since March, which has not conducted any nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile launches since 2017.
They came days after a scaled-back parade in Pyongyang to mark the 73rd anniversary of the country’s founding.
Nuclear talks with the United States have stalled since the fall of a 2019 summit in Hanoi over sanctions relief between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump – and what Pyongyang would be willing to give in return .
North Korea’s envoy for current US President Joe Biden, Sung Kim, has repeatedly expressed his desire to meet “anywhere, anytime” with his Pyongyang counterparts.
But the poor North has never shown any signs that it would be ready to surrender its nuclear arsenal, and has rejected South Korean efforts to revive talks.
Last month, the United Nations Nuclear Agency (IAEA) said Pyongyang had started its plutonium-producing reprocessing reactor in Yongbyon, calling it a “deeply disturbing” development.
Kim’s sister and key adviser Kim Yo Jong also called for the withdrawal of US troops from the peninsula.
Last week, South Korea tested a domestic submarine-launched ballistic missile – a technology the North has long sought to develop.
North Korea showed off four such equipment in January at a military parade under Kim’s supervision, which the KCNA called “the world’s most powerful weapon”.
North Korea recently released photos of an underwater launch in 2019.
But analysts believe it was from a fixed platform or submersible barge, rather than a submarine.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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