SEOUL, Oct. 20 (BNA) – North Korea said on Wednesday that it has tested a newly developed ballistic missile from a submarine, in its first underwater test launch in two years, and North Korea said it will enhance its military’s undersea capabilities.
Tuesday’s test was the fifth round of missile launches since September, and comes as North Korea ramps up pressure on Washington and Seoul to abandon what Pyongyang views as hostile policies such as US-South Korea joint military exercises and international sanctions on North Korea, the Associated Press reported. . .
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the latest test “will greatly contribute to placing the country’s defense technology at a high level and enhance the underwater operational capability of our navy.” She said that the new missile introduced advanced control guidance techniques, including fetal mobility and parachute jumping.
On Tuesday, North Korea’s neighbors said they had detected a missile launch from North Korea and said the weapon had fallen into the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan. The South Korean military described the missile as a submarine-launched short-range ballistic missile and said the launch took place from waters near the eastern port of Sinpo, where North Korea has submarines to build a shipyard.
The Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday’s launch was carried out from “the same ship Yongong 8.24”, a submarine that North Korea said it used to conduct its first submarine-launched strategic ballistic missile test in 2016. Pictures released by North Korea show a missile surging and spewing flames. Shining above a cloud of sea smoke. One of the images shows the upper parts of what looks like a submarine on the surface of the sea.
North Korea conducted its last ballistic missile test in October 2019. Foreign experts said North Korea used a submersible barge, not a submarine, to launch at that time.
Tuesday’s launch was North Korea’s largest weapons test since President Joe Biden took office in January. The Biden administration has repeatedly said it is open to resuming nuclear diplomacy with North Korea “anywhere, anytime” without preconditions. North Korea has so far rejected such initiatives, saying US hostility has not changed.
The launch came days before Sung Kim, Biden’s special envoy to North Korea, was to travel to Seoul to discuss the possibility of reviving diplomacy with Pyongyang with allies.
In a meeting in Washington with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Kim stressed the United States’ condemnation of the launch, which violates several United Nations Security Council resolutions, and urged Pyongyang to refrain from further provocations and “engage in continuous and substantive dialogue,” the Foreign Ministry said. . She said.
The United Nations Security Council set an emergency closed-door consultation on North Korea on Wednesday afternoon at the request of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Kim Dong-yup, a professor at Seoul University of North Korean Studies, said the North Korean weapon tested on Tuesday was likely derived from the ground-based, nuclear-capable KN-23 missile, which provides it with a less maneuverable trajectory and a greater trajectory. Chances of evading missile defense systems.
On Tuesday, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kiichi said the North Korean missile had traveled on an “irregular trajectory” while traveling up to 600 km (360 miles).
“Submarine-launched ballistic missiles are the most terrifying nuclear weapon because we don’t know where they can be launched,” said Moon Geun-sik, a submarine expert who teaches at Kyung Gi University in South Korea. “North Korea’s goal is to build more powerful ballistic missiles that can be launched from large submarines as the United States does.”
North Korea has been pushing hard for years to gain the ability to launch nuclear-armed missiles from submarines, the next major piece in an arsenal that includes a variety of weapons including those that can reach US soil.
However, experts say it will take years, large amounts of resources and major technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned state to build at least several submarines that can travel calmly on the seas and reliably carry out strikes.
North Korea has an estimated 70-90 diesel submarines in one of the world’s largest submarine fleets. But they are mostly older ones capable of firing only torpedoes and mines, not missiles. Moon said the ship North Korea used during the 2016 SLBM test is the only North submarine capable of launching a missile, but it has a single launch tube and is called a test platform by some experts, not an active-duty weapons system.
In 2019, North Korea unveiled a 2,000-ton class submarine fitted with several missile launch tubes, but there was no official confirmation that it had been deployed for operational use. North Korea is seeking to build larger submarines, including a nuclear-powered one.
The new missile tested on Tuesday is likely to be a small-scale weapon shown during a defense fair last week, analyst Kim said. The professor said North Korea likely plans to load this missile onto the submarine it unveiled in 2019 while placing larger SLBMs on larger submarines under development.
In a report released this month on North Korea’s military capabilities, the US Defense Intelligence Agency said North Korea’s pursuit of submarine-launched ballistic missile capabilities combined with its steady development of mobile land-based long-range weapons highlights Pyongyang’s intentions “to build a survivable missile, A reliable nuclear weapons delivery capability.
Some experts say North Korea may continue its weapons tests for an additional two months until it halts them in light of the Winter Olympics scheduled for February in China, its last major ally and economic pipeline. They say North Korea could test-fire long-range missiles that directly threaten the mainland United States in breach of a 2018 moratorium on such weapons tests to increase the pressure campaign.
Nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea have been bogged down for more than two years due to differences over easing the crippling US-led sanctions against North Korea in exchange for denuclearization steps by North Korea.