North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has guided the test launches of the nation’s newly developed precision guided missiles, state media said yesterday, in a possible reference to three short-range projectiles South Korean officials say the North fired toward its waters a day earlier.
South Korean defense officials said the projectiles fired from an eastern port city on Thursday flew about 190km before harmlessly landing into the waters off its east coast. The exact type of those projectiles and the North’s intentions were not immediately known.
The North’s state media said that the country tested what it calls “cutting-edge ultra-precision tactical guided missiles,” and Kim watched the tests with top deputies and was satisfied with the results.
There is virtually no way to independently confirm whether Pyongyang has developed such high-technology missiles. North Korea has frequently bluffed and exaggerated its military capability, and its army, though one of the world’s largest, is seen as running on outdated equipment and short supplies amid the nation’s chronic economic problems, according to foreign analysts.
Still, the impoverished North devotes much of its scarce resources to its missile and nuclear programs, which pose a serious threat to South Korea, Japan and tens of thousands of US troops in the region.
Outside analysts say North Korea has developed a handful of crude nuclear devices and is working toward building a warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, although most experts say that goal may take years to achieve.
The North did not say when the latest launches took place or how many missiles were fired, but they are likely the projectiles that Seoul says North Korea fired on Thursday as there have been no other such reported firings by North Korea in recent days.
South Korean Ministry of Defense spokesman Kim Min-seok yesterday said that North Korea has been trying to upgrade its large-caliber multiple rocket launch systems in recent years and that those weapons’ range has been slightly and gradually increased in each test-launch.
The North Korean media dispatch yesterday called the latest missile launches “significant” because they were made at a time when it is bolstering its national defense because the US and South Korea are “going extremely reckless in the moves to isolate and stifle [North Korea] and unleash a war of aggression.”
Short-range test firings by North Korea are not unusual, but a barrage of missile and artillery tests earlier this year boosted tension between the rivals. A North Korean artillery attack in 2010 killed four South Koreans on a front-line island.
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