United States condemns North Korean missile tests
North Korea on Sunday conducted what appeared to be its longest-range missile test in five years as the country ramps up military pressure amid stalled nuclear talks.
The Japanese and South Korean militaries said the missile was launched on a lofted trajectory, apparently to avoid the territorial spaces of neighbors.
Japanese officials said that their initial assessment of its flight path suggested the missile potentially reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) and traveled 800 kilometers (497 miles) before landing in the sea. The missile appears to have fallen into waters outside the country’s maritime exclusive economic zone, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.
“The United States condemns these actions and calls on (North Korea) to refrain from further destabilizing acts,” the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement after Sunday’s launch.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida strongly condemned the weapons test and convened a meeting of the national security council. Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in convened an emergency meeting to discuss North Korea’s weapons test as he criticized the intermediate-range missile test as “a challenge to the international community’s efforts for a diplomatic solution and a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
The flight details suggest the North tested its longest-range ballistic missile since 2017. The fast pace of tests indicates North Korea’s intent to pressure the Biden administration over long-stalled nuclear negotiations.
Analysts said the data suggested it was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), possibly the Hwasong-12, which was last tested in 2017. North Korean leaders said they restart those testing activities because the United States and its allies had shown no sign of dropping their “hostile policies.”
North Korea said it successfully test-fired hypersonic missiles on January 5 and 11, 2022. The latest tests signify Pyongyang’s relentless development to build a more extensive and advanced arsenal of land-based and sea-based missiles.
