It was a record year for the nuclear nation’s missile program after it resumed ICBM tests for the first time since 2017 and broke a moratorium it had imposed on long-range launches as denuclearization talks stalled. Japan’s coast guard said the missile likely landed in the sea about 210 kilometers (130 miles) west of Hokkaido. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said there were no reports of damage, but the North’s repeated missile launches could not be tolerated. He said the missile appeared to have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. ICBMs are North Korea’s longest-range weapon and are designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to any location in the continental United States. A day earlier, North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile, while its foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, warned of “tougher military responses” to US moves to build up its military presence, saying Washington was taking a “gamble which he will regret”. In a statement carried by state media, Choe condemned Sunday’s trilateral summit of the United States, South Korea and Japan, in which the leaders of those countries criticized Pyongyang’s weapons tests and pledged greater cooperation in the area security. This year North Korea conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests, which are prohibited by United Nations Security Council resolutions that have sanctioned the country over its missile and nuclear weapons programs. Friday’s launch came as US Vice President Kamala Harris was in Thailand for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, amid geopolitical tensions over the war in Ukraine and other flashpoints such as Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.
LONG RANGE SQUADS
ICBMs are ballistic missiles with a minimum range of about 5,500 kilometers (3,400 mi), designed primarily to deliver nuclear weapons. Some are able to travel 10,000 km (6,200 mi) or more. Some missiles carry only one warhead, but analysts suspect North Korea is seeking to develop ICBMs that can carry multiple warheads, each capable of navigating to a separate target point, on independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). North Korea’s last suspected ICBM test was on November 3, when it fired multiple missiles into the sea in what it said was a protest against allied military exercises by South Korea and the United States. Based on photos released by state media, analysts said the Nov. 3 launch appeared to be a never-before-seen ICBM, possibly a variant of the Hwasong-15 ICBM, which was first tested in 2017 and it might have launched in March as well. A South Korean official said the Nov. 3 test may have failed at high altitude. South Korean and US officials said some North Korean ICBM tests appeared to have failed this year. North Korea claimed to have successfully launched its massive new Hwasong-17 ICBM for the first time on March 24, but South Korean and US officials concluded that the launch appeared to be the previously launched Hwasong-15. The March 24 launch was nevertheless the North’s longest-ever ICBM test, flying for 67.5 minutes at a maximum altitude of 6,248.5 km (3,905 miles), North Korean state media said. The North has also fired hundreds of artillery shells into the sea recently as South Korea and the United States staged drills, some of which involved Japan. Reported by Soo-hyang Choi. Edited by Jacqueline Wong and Edmund Klamann Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
