Kim test proves new missile ‘nuclear capable’

The test has confirmed the reliability of an improved solid fuel engine, North Korea’s news agency says.

What is believed to be North Korea’s new KN23 ballistic missile is test-fired on Thursday. Picture: Korean Central News Agency Via Reuters

North Korea has tested a new “tactical guided projectile” with a solid-fuel engine, state media said on Friday after the nuclear-armed country carried out its first substantive provocation since US President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Pyongyang has a history of using weapons tests to ramp up tensions, in a calibrated process to try to forward its objectives.

On Thursday it launched two weapons from its east coast, with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga calling them ballistic missiles.

Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its weapons programs, with UN Security Council resolutions banning it from developing ballistic missiles. Mr Biden said on Friday that UN resolution 1718 “was violated by those particular missiles that were tested”.

Pyongyang had been biding its time since the new administration took office, not even officially acknowledging its existence until last week.

The US was “consulting with our partners and allies”, Mr Biden said, warning North Korea that “there will be responses if they choose to escalate. We will respond accordingly.

“I’m also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearisation.”

A.Marshal Ri Pyong Chol, centre, oversees the missile launch on Thursday. Picture: Korean Central News Agency via Reuters

The firing was supervised by Marshal Ri Pyong-Chol, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, rather than leader Kim Jong-un.

It was successful with the two projectiles hitting a target 600km into the Sea of Japan, known as the East Sea in Korea, it added — further than the 450km reported by South Korea’s military. KCNA said the weapon could carry a payload of 2.5 tonnes, in a dispatch that avoided using the words “missile” or “ballistic”. The test had confirmed the reliability of an improved solid fuel engine, KCNA added.

Pictures in Pyongyang’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed grinning officers applauding after the launch from a vehicle.

Vipin Narang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy said it appeared to be a weapon that the North displayed at a military parade in January. “A 2.5 ton warhead likely settles the question whether this KN23 variant is nuclear capable. It is,” he tweeted.

The test was “of great significance in bolstering up the military power of the country”, KCNA cited Marshal Ri as saying, “and deterring all sorts of military threats existing on the Korean peninsula”.

The US stations 28,500 troops in the South to defend it against its neighbour, which invaded in 1950, while Pyongyang says it needs nuclear weapons to deter a possible US invasion.

As well as Mr Biden, rebukes poured in from Germany, France and Britain which each condemned the tests as violations of UN Security Council resolutions.

At Washington’s request, the UN North Korea sanctions committee was to meet on Friday night behind closed doors, according to diplomatic sources, although no statement was expected.

Pyongyang has made rapid progress in its capabilities under Kim, testing missiles capable of reaching the entire continental US as tensions mounted in 2017.

Former US president Donald Trump’s first year in office was marked by a series of escalating launches, accompanied by a war of words between him and Kim.

The two then held two summits in Singapore and Vietnam.

The US pulled back on some joint military exercises with South Korea while the North froze intercontinental ballistic missile tests. But the February 2019 Hanoi summit broke up over sanctions relief and what North Korea would be willing to give up in return. Communications then dried up, despite a third encounter in the Demilitariaed Zone, and no substantive progress was made towards denuclearisation.

AFP