SEOUL, May 25 (AP): North Korea test-launched a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile and two shorter-range weapons toward its eastern waters on Wednesday, South Korea said, hours after President Joe Biden ended a trip to Asia where he reaffirmed the US commitment to defend its allies in the face of the North’s nuclear threat.
The suspected ICBM didn’t fly its full range. But if confirmed, it would still be North Korea’s first test of an ICBM system in about two months amid stalled nuclear diplomacy with the United States. The launch suggests North Korea is determined to continue its efforts to modernize its weapons arsenal despite its first Covid-19 outbreak, which has caused outside worries about a humanitarian disaster.
“North Korea’s sustained provocations can only result in stronger and faster South Korea-US combined deterrence and can only deepen North Korea’s international isolation,” the South Korean government said in a statement after an emergency security meeting.
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Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi called the launches “an act of provocation and absolutely impermissible.” The US Indo-Pacific Command earlier said the missile launches highlight “the destabilizing impact of (North Korea’s) illicit weapons program” though they didn’t pose an immediate threat to US territory and its allies.
According to South Korea’s military, the three missiles lifted off from the North’s capital region one after another on Wednesday morning.
A military statement said the first missile was likely an ICBM and that it reached a maximum height of 540 kilometers (335 miles) while travelling 360 kilometers (223 miles). The statement said the second missile disappeared from South Korean radar at some point and the third missile flew 760 kilometers (472 miles) on an apogee of 60 kilometers (37 miles).
Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters that the first missile was assessed as the North’s biggest Hwasong-17 missile, whose potential range includes the entirety of the US mainland. He said the missile was fired at a high angle and that its launch appeared aimed at reviewing the weapon’s propellant and stage separations, though he couldn’t conclusively say whether the test was successful.
He said the tests of the two other missiles, both short-range weapons, implied North Korea’s intention to improve its ability to launch nuclear strikes on its rivals.
While the North Korean launches were part of its weapons development program, they were also strategically timed to the end of Biden’s Asian tour and likely designed to test the readiness of South Korea’s new government, which took office about two weeks ago, Kim said.
The flight details for the suspected ICBM were similar to those of two previous North Korean launches this year, which the South Korean and US militaries have said were meant to test components of the Hwasong-17 missile in launches that flew medium distances, not the full range. North Korea said at the time it launched rockets to test cameras for a spy satellite.
After the two launches, South Korea’s military in March detected what it said was a North Korean Hwasong-17 missile that blew up soon after lift-off. Later in the month, North Korea claimed to have successfully launched the Hwasong-17 in its first full-range ICBM flight test that broke its self-imposed 2018 moratorium on long-distance launches.
South Korea said North Korea may have fired a smaller ICBM, not a Hwasong-17. Whichever it was, the missile flew longer and higher than any other weapon the North has ever tested, experts say.
Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at Korea Aerospace University in South Korea, said the North’s two earlier launches prior to its exploded missile were likely aimed at testing clustered engines. Given that, he said he doubts whether North Korea truly launched an ICBM again Wednesday because the country would have no reason to conduct the same test repeatedly and waste an ICBM that costs about 10-20 billion won ($8-16 million).
Chang said the flight details of the third missile resemble those of the hypersonic missile that North Korea tested in January. Other analysts say it could also be the North’s highly manoeuvrable, nuclear-capable KN-23 missile.
There’s less ambiguity about what North Korea was trying to show by mix-launching an ICBM and short-range missile. After Biden recently stressed America’s commitment to defend South Korea and Japan during his visits to those countries, North Korea responded by demonstrating its pursuit of an ability to conduct nuclear attacks on both the US mainland and its allies in Asia, according to Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.
“(The launches) were a political message. They’re saying they feel bad” about Biden’s recent summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Chang said.
