Images of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shown on a screen at a train station in Seoul following an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was fired on March 24, 2022 in South Korea (AFP / Anthony WALLACE)
North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into Japan’s exclusive economic maritime zone on Thursday, breaking a moratorium it had observed since 2017, drawing strong condemnation from the UN.
On Friday morning, the North Korean state agency KCNA confirmed that the firing of “a new type” of ICBM, dubbed Hwasong-17, had been personally ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and that he had perfectly hit his target in the Sea of Japan
South Korean President Moon Jae-in previously said in a statement that the projectile launched by Pyongyang was an ICBM.
This is “a break in the suspension of intercontinental ballistic missile launches promised by President Kim Jong Un to the international community”, he lamented.
The South Korean military said it responded by firing “missiles from the ground, sea and air” off its coast.
The UN on Thursday “strongly” condemned the shooting and called on Pyongyang to cease any action deemed “counterproductive” and which stokes “tensions” in Asia.
Photo released by the Blue House showing South Korean President Moon Jae-in (C) before chairing an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, in Seoul on March 24, 2022 (The Blue House/Handout)
The Security Council should meet on Friday at the request of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway in the face of this “unambiguous” shooting by North Korea, have diplomats told AFP
“The launch of a long-range missile runs the risk of an escalation of tensions in the region,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The Secretary-General urges the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) not to take further counterproductive actions.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida denounced “a scandalous act”. The North Korean regime “threatens the peace and security of Japan, the region and the international community”, he said from Brussels, where he was for a G7 summit.
Mr. Kishida and US President Joe Biden were able to discuss this new crisis on the sidelines of the G7, according to a White House official.
Condemning “strongly” the new shooting, the White House assured that the United States would take “all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American territory, South Korea and Japan”.
The new firing demonstrates that North Korea “continues to prioritize its weapons of mass destruction,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “strongly condemned” the shooting in a telephone conversation Thursday evening, according to a statement from the Tokyo Foreign Ministry.
UN resolutions prohibit North Korea, hit by heavy international sanctions for its nuclear and weapons programs, from testing ballistic missiles.
This has not prevented Pyongyang from carrying out a dozen tests of this type of weapon since the beginning of the year.
But it was not until now intercontinental missiles, even if Washington and Seoul suspect the North Korean regime of having tested certain ICBM systems during these launches.
Pyongyang carried out three ICBM launches in 2017. The device then tested, the Hwasong-15, was able to reach the United States.
North Korean Missile Shooting (AFP /)
“The ballistic missile flew for 71 minutes and fell around 3:44 p.m. (0644 GMT) in the exclusive economic zone, in the Sea of Japan, regarding 150 km west of the Oshima peninsula” in the northern island of Hokkaido, said the number two of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, Makoto Oniki.
“Since the ballistic missile this time flew at an altitude of more than 6,000 km, much higher than the Hwasong-15 ICBM which was launched in November 2017, today’s one is believed to be a new ICBM,” he added.
– Failed last week –
According to Seoul, a missile test by North Korea on March 16 ended in failure, with the projectile exploding in the sky over Pyongyang shortly following being launched from Sunan airport, north of the capital. . The regime has kept silent regarding this event.
Pyongyang “led today’s launch to make up for this failure,” Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, told AFP.
Analysts had expected Pyongyang, which will celebrate the 110th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, the country’s founder and grandfather of Kim Jong Un, on April 15, to put on a show of force to mark the most important on the North Korean political calendar.
Kim Jong Un said last year that improving the country’s military capabilities was a priority for the regime.
Data on North Korea’s missile arsenal (AFP/)
Priority among priorities: developing an ICBM capable of carrying several conventional or nuclear warheads each following an independent trajectory, difficult to intercept by anti-missile systems.
This missile, the Hwasong-17, has been dubbed the “monster missile” by military analysts. It was shown during a parade in Pyongyang in October 2020.
“Kim probably feels that now is the perfect time to develop ICBMs, and to remind the world emphatically that the North, unlike Ukraine, is a nuclear-armed country,” he told Archyde.com. AFP Ahn Chan-il, North Korea expert.
The essay comes as South Korea is in a period of presidential transition, with outgoing head of state Moon Jae-in due to hand over his chair in May to conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, elected earlier this month and who has promised to adopt a harder line in the face of provocations from the North.
