SEOUL, South Korea—Two months after claiming to have tested engines for a new, harder-to-detect missile capable of targeting far-off U.S. sites in the area, North Korea is suspected of firing an intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday, according to South Korea's military.
It was the North's first launch of the year. According to experts, North Korea may step up its provocative missile launches in an attempt to sway the outcome of the legislative elections in South Korea in April and the presidential election in the United States in November.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea said in a statement that it had seen the North Korean capital region's launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Sunday afternoon. The missile was reported to have traveled around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and landed in the seas between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
The launch was deemed a provocation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a major danger to the peace on the Korean Peninsula. It stated that the military of South Korea would continue to be prepared to decisively counter any provocations made by North Korea.
According to the South Korean assessment, North Korea may have fired a brand-new intermediate-range ballistic missile, which it claimed to have tested in mid-November and possessed a solid-fuel engine.
The missile's primary target is American military installations within the country. Guam's Pacific territory is located around 3,400 kilometers (2,110 miles) away from Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Chang Young-keun, a missile specialist at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul, claims that the missile can also be used to strike closer targets with a range adjustment: the American military installations on the island of Okinawa in Japan.
Compared to liquid-fuelled missiles, which must be fueled before to launch and have a limited fuel capacity, missile launches with built-in solid propellants are more difficult to detect. Although North Korea's current Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile is fuelled by liquid fuel, the country has an expanding arsenal of short-range solid-fuel missiles aimed against South Korea.
The missile traveled at least 500 kilometers (300 miles) at its highest height of 50 kilometers (30 miles), according to Japan's Defense Ministry's research. These findings imply that North Korea may have shot a short-range missile rather than an intermediate-range one.
Although South Korea and Japan claimed to have extensively coordinated with the US regarding the launch, they delayed providing an explanation for the disparity in information.
Senior officials from South Korea, the US, and Japan denounced the North Korean launch in a trilateral conversation later on Sunday, emphasized that a North Korean provocation would lead to the three nations stepping up their security cooperation, and this was confirmed by South Korea's Foreign Ministry.
North Korea last launched a missile on December 18, during which it conducted a test flight of its most sophisticated weapon, the Hwasong-18 solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile. The sole known solid-fuel ICBM in the nation, the Hwasong-18, is intended to attack the United States mainland.
Following a flurry of artillery rounds fired by North Korea on January 5 close to the disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, the latter conducted similar firing drills in the same region. The location has seen three deadly naval engagements between the two Koreas since 1999; in 2010, strikes attributed to North Korea resulted in the deaths of fifty South Koreans.
Prior to an election year in both South Korea and the US, North Korea has also been intensifying its belligerent, warlike language toward its adversaries in recent days. Leader Kim Jong Un referred to South Korea as "our principal enemy" last week and vowed to destroy it if it were to irritate him.
Since 2019, Mr. Kim has made a concerted effort to increase the size of his nuclear and missile arsenals. North Korea has also been increasing its military and other forms of collaboration with Russia in recent months.
According to the U.S. administration, there is proof that Russia utilized missiles supplied by North Korea to wage war in Ukraine. North Korea receives important military and technical intelligence from the missile transfer, while the United States, South Korea, and its allies back Russia's aggressive war, according to a joint declaration released last week.
Russia and North Korea said on Sunday that, at the request of her Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui will visit Russia from Monday through Wednesday.
