A TV screen is seen reporting North Korea’s missile launch with file footage during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul yesterday
North Korea yesterday conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile launch in a month, possibly testing a new more mobile, harder-to-detect missile for the first time, its neighbors said, as it extends its provocative run of weapons tests.
Japan briefly urged residents on a northern island to take shelter in an indication of its vigilance over North Korea’s evolving missile threats.
The missile was launched on a high angle from near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and fell in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan following a 1,000-kilometer flight, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staffs said in a statement.
It described its range as medium or longer. The U.S. National Security Council called it a long-range missile and Japan’s government said it likely had an intercontinental range.
South Korea’s military believes North Korea launched a new type of ballistic missile, possibly using solid fuel, a defense official said under the condition of anonymity because of office rules.
If the launch involved a solid-fuel ICBM, it would be the North’s first test of such a weapon. North Korea’s known ICBMs all use liquid propellants that must be fueled before launches. But the fuel in a solid-propellant weapon is already loaded, allowing it to be moved easier and fired faster.
A solid-fuel ICBM is one of the key high-tech weapons that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to build to better cope with what he calls U.S. military threats. He also wants a multiwarhead missile, a nuclear-powered submarine, a hypersonic missile and a spy satellite.
Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said the launch may have involved a new intermediate- or long-range missile powered by solid propellants, or be linked to North Korean preparation to launch a spy satellite.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the latest launch “needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region.” Watson said the United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and South Korean and Japanese allies.
During an emergency meeting of Seoul’s National Security Council, officials stressed the need to tighten three-way security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a meeting of his NSC to analyze the launch and Japan’s response.
The nuclear envoys of Seoul, Washington and Tokyo held a telephone conversation where they called for a “decisive and united international response” to North Korean provocations and stronger efforts to stem illicit North Korean funding of its weapons program.
North Korea commonly test-launches missiles toward the international waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, using elevated trajectories to avoid neighboring countries. South Korea and Japan typically don’t issue evacuation orders unless they determine the North Korean weapon is flying in their direction.
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters the North Korean missile launched yesterday did not reach Japan’s exclusive economic zone. But Japanese authorities still urged people on the northernmost island of Hokkaido to seek shelter and temporarily suspended train, bus and subway services there. Local communities also activated alert sirens through community speakers, urging people to evacuate. MDT/AP
