North Korea launches projectile off its east coast, says the South

With Sunday’s launch, Pyongyang restarts weapons tests after nearly a month of inaction.

Kim Jong-un addresses a ruling Workers’ Party conference in Pyongyang on Saturday. Picture: Korean Central News Agency via AFP

North Korea launched a suspected ballistic missile off its east coast on Sunday morning, Tokyo and Seoul authorities said, restarting weapons tests after nearly a month of inaction.

The single missile was fired around 7.52am local time from the Sunan area, Seoul’s military said.

It travelled around 300km and hit an altitude of more than 595km, before splashing into the waters between Korea and Japan, Tokyo’s military said.

Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi criticised the North Korean test. “If their idea was to conduct this at an unguarded moment for the international community while it was responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we absolutely cannot condone this,” Mr Kishi said.

The Kim Jong-un regime started 2022 by conducting a flurry of missile launches. Its seven weapons tests in January were more than all of last year. But until Sunday, North Korea had stayed quiet since January 30 when it test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile – its most powerful test in years. Some security experts said Pyongyang would have wanted to keep a low profile during the Winter Olympics this month so as not to embarrass Beijing, one of the regime’s few allies.

In January, Pyongyang fired missiles from a train and from an airfield. Mr Kim attended the final test of the country’s self-proclaimed hypersonic technology, making his first in-person visit to a launch in two years.

The US and North Korea haven’t held formal nuclear talks in two years. The Kim regime has brushed off outreach from the Biden administration and appeared more focused on domestic affairs. Pyongyang has kept its borders largely sealed off throughout the pandemic. It has spurned offers by international relief groups to provide millions of Covid-19 vaccinations.

North Korea’s politburo in January threatened to resume nuclear or long-range missile tests. Pyongyang’s dozens of missile launches in the past four years have showcased shorter-range technology that isn’t designed to fly halfway around the world.

Just under a year ago, US President Joe Biden said he saw North Korea as the biggest foreign policy threat facing the US.

But with global attention diverted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea may see it as a chance to test weapons without as much risk of punishment, said Jean H. Lee, a senior fellow at the Korea program at the Wilson Centre, a think tank in Washington, on Sunday.

“Regardless, I think Kim has his own timeline and goals for new weapons in 2022,” she said. “He wants to have new weapons to unveil this spring. Tests get him closer to perfecting the technology.”

The Wall Street Journal