Two Koreas dispute the North’s nuke-capable missile test

State media claimed Pyongyang had successfully launched the Hwasongpho-11Da-4.5 missile.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. Picture: KCNA via AFP

North Korea successfully tested a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying a super-large warhead, state media said on Tuesday, with analysts suggesting it could be nuclear-capable.

State media claimed Pyongyang had successfully launched the Hwasongpho-11Da-4.5 missile, which it said was capable of carrying a 4.5-tonne-class super-large warhead.

“The test fire was conducted with a missile tipped with a simulated heavy warhead to verify flight stability and hit accuracy at the maximum range of 500km and the minimum range of 90km,” the Korean Central News Agency said, adding it would test-fire the missile again this month “to verify flight characteristics, hit accuracy and explosion power of (a) super-large warhead at the medium range of 250km”.

But the South Korean military said Pyongyang’s claims of a successful test were likely a “lie”, pointing to the fact that one of the missiles appeared to have failed in the early stages of flight.

The South’s military said that missile’s trajectory suggested a possible mid-air explosion over North Korea, which could have led to the danger of falling debris. “It is extremely rare for test launches to be conducted inland, and the claim that they succeeded … is likely to be false,” Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung-jun said on Tuesday.

A super-large warhead, a spy military satellite and solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles were among the advanced weapons North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed at a 2021 party congress that he would develop.

In the KCNA report, the weapon was “described as a ‘super-large warhead’, deliberately omitting the word ‘nuclear’,” said Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “But since it is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, it can be considered a nuclear weapon.”

The test launches took place after Kim’s regime denounced the latest joint military exercises by Seoul, Tokyo and Washington as an “Asian version of NATO”, and warned of “fatal consequences”.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North ramping up weapons testing while bombarding the South with balloons full of rubbish.

AFP