North Korea launched its first provocative missile test of the year Sunday — firing a suspected intermediate-range ballistic explosive that reportedly could hit US targets in the region.
The totalitarian government’s military flexing came two months after Pyongyang said it tested engines for a new long-range stealth missile.
A South Korea assessment suggested that Sunday’s projectile — which flew 620 miles, into the Sea of Japan — could have been the type of solid-fuel engine missile the North said it tested in November.
The missile is designed to potentially hit US military bases in Guam roughly 2,100 miles away and could also be used to attack US installations on Okinawa in Japan, said a missile expert at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul.
Japan’s analysis differed, with its defense officials saying the missile traveled only 300 miles, meaning it could have been short-range and not intermediate-range.
The North’s existing intermediate-range missile runs on a liquid-fuel engine which must be fueled before launch, doesn’t last last as long and is easier to detect.
It also has a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, tested last month, that is designed to strike North America.
Experts believe the North could use the missile tests to influence critical elections in South Korea and the US this year. Kim is believed to want South Korean liberals to defeat conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol and is rooting for his frenemy Donald Trump to win a second non-consecutive term in the hopes of earning more concessions.
President Biden, who is running for re-election, warned Kim in December that any nuclear attacks on the US or its allies in the region would “be met with a swift, overwhelming, and decisive response.”
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South Korea said diplomats from the US and Japan had condemned the launch during a trilateral call and agreed to bolster security cooperation, adding South Korea’s military was on standby to overwhelmingly respond to any threats.
The launch occurred during ramped-up rhetoric from the North. Last week, nutty dictator Kim Jong Un said his nation has “no intention of avoiding war” and would will annihilate South Korea, his “principal enemy,” if threatened.
Residents of two South Korean islands were evacuated Jan. 5 after the North fired more than 200 artillery rounds into the sea near a tensely defended maritime border with its neighbor on the Korean peninsula.
The missile launch came on the same day it was announced that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui would visit Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.
Washington has expressed “profound” concerns about North Korea’s increasing military cooperation with Russia, saying it has evidence Moscow has been using missiles provided by Pyongyang in its nearly two-year-old unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, providing the North with technical and military insights.
Experts believe that North Korea may now be ramping up its provocative stance as much of the West turns its attention to Israel’s war in Gaza
“Pyongyang’s show of force should be of concern beyond Seoul, as its military cooperation with Moscow adds to the violence in Ukraine, and because it may be more willing to challenge the US and its allies while global attention is fixed on the Middle East,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
With Post wires
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