North Korea launches another ICBM, one of the most powerful ever made

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched its second ICBM on Friday this month and one of its most powerful so far, South Korean and Japanese officials said, and followed up with its recent flurry of evidence of weapons in defiance of warnings from the United States and its allies.

The missile landed in waters west of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island.

While airborne, the commander of the United States Air Force’s 35th Fighter Wing ordered all personnel at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan to will seek refugea precautionary move that underscored growing concern in the region about the calculated risk from the North.

The missile covered a range of 998 kilometers and reached an altitude of more than 5,979 kilometers, according to officials in South Korea and Japan.

An ICBM that North Korea launched on March 24, apparently its most powerful to date, flew only slightly farther and higher. before falling into waters west of Japan, according to analysis by the South Korean military.

“North Korea is repeating itself provocations with unprecedented frequency, and this is completely unacceptable,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters in Bangkok on Friday, where he was attending a regional summit.

He said the missile had landed inside the exclusive economic zone Japan and warned vessels in the area to avoid contact with anything resembling missile parts.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has called for “strong sentences and sanctions against North Korea” at the United Nations, his office said.

North Korea has launched at least 88 ballistic missiles and otherwise this year, more than in any previous year, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibiting it from testing ballistic missiles and nuclear devices.

In recent weeks, the tests have been increasingly provocative.

On Oct. 4, North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile into northern Japan, where it set off air raid alarms, prompting residents to take cover.

On November 2, it launched at least 23 missiles, one of which crossed the maritime border of the two Koreas and landed international waters off the east coast of South Korea, setting off alarms on a populated island.

The next day, the North tested an ICBM, one of six ballistic missiles fired eastward from three locations.

The ICBM launch, which triggered multiple alarms in Japan, traveled 760 kilometers and reached an altitude of 1,919 kilometers.

Firing steep-angle long-range missiles is seen as a way to demonstrate that North Korea could strike distant targets if it wanted to.

Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and head of the Korean division at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the recent wave of tests was “allowed by China and Russia,” two powerful Security Council members. . they scuttled US-led attempts to impose new sanctions on the North.

Cha added that the recent face-to-face meeting between the president Joe Biden Y Xi Jinping of China “clarified that there has been no progress in North Korea.

In fact, China is almost dissociating itself from the North Korea problem and saying, “It’s all your problem,” so China won’t help.”

The US and South Korean militaries were still analyzing data collected from Friday’s launch to determine precisely what type of missile the North fired this time.

It was launched from the Sunan district of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, South Korean defense officials said.

Japan said the missile appeared to have landed about 209 kilometers off its coast and personnel at a US Air Force base in Japan were ordered to take cover.

North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile off its east coast on Thursday, two hours after its foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, warned the North’s response would be “fierce” if the United States, South Korea and Japan had escalated their anger among the military.

The leaders of these three nations met on Monday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and vowed to “work together to strengthen deterrence” against North Korea.

They agreed that their countries would share real-time warning data to improve their ability to detect and assess the threat posed by incoming North Korean missiles, and Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to defend its allies in the East Asia with “the full range of capabilities, including nuclear ones.

Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council in Washington, said after Friday’s launch that the United States “will take all necessary steps” to ensure its own security and that of South Korea and Japan.

“The door has not been closed to diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead opt for diplomatic engagement,” he said in a statement.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly promised to succeed nuclear arsenal and the country’s largest and most sophisticated missile fleet.

Analysts say Kim sees it as essential to ensuring the security of his regime, increasing his influence in any future arms control talks with Washington and tipping the balance of military power between North and South Korea in favor of the North .

North Korea first fired ICBMs in 2017, claiming it could now attack the continental United States with a nuclear warhead.

That year it also conducted its most recent nuclear test, its sixth.

Shortly thereafter, Kim announced a halt to all long-range ballistic missile and nuclear tests, as part of the diplomatic push that led to his series of summit meetings with the then president. Donald Trump.

Those talks collapsed with no deal on reversing the Northern arms program or lifting UN sanctions imposed in response to it, and this year,

North Korea has ended its self-imposed moratorium on ICBM testing.

Between February and May, North Korea conducted six missile tests that appeared to involve ICBMs, including a Hwasong-17, its newest and largest long-range missile.

The Hwasong-17 has had a history of testing hilly since it was first displayed at a military parade in October 2020.

In March, one of them exploded shortly after takeoff, according to South Korean officials.

After its powerful ICBM test in March, North Korea claimed the missile was a Hwasong-17.

But South Korean officials later said it was in fact an older model, a Hwasong-15, accusing the North of exaggerating its progress in weapons development by falsely claiming the Hwasong-17 launch was successful.

The missile launched on Nov. 3 appeared to be a Hwasong-17, officials said.

While they believe the test failed, they also said it indicated North Korea was making progress with the two-stage missile.

Unlike the one that exploded in March, the Hwasong-17 launched in November successfully detached its warhead second stage, they said.

In the current geopolitical environment, with Russia’s war in Ukraine and US-China relations at a low ebb, North Korea will most likely see opportunities to develop its weapons and provoke its enemies with virtual impunity, analysts say.

The United States and its allies have warned for months that an emboldened North could resume nuclear testing at any moment.

“As China and Russia protect North Korea from UN sanctions, Pyongyang is seizing the opportunity to technologically develop a long-range missile that has failed previous tests,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at the North Korea University. feminine in Seoul.

“Regardless of the actions taken by the United States and its allies, the Kim regime appears to be deliberately escalating its provocations toward a major nuclear test”.

Cha said it is difficult to see a viable solution at this point, given that North Korea has not responded to the Biden administration’s diplomatic outreach.

“The only thing taking us out of this spiral is diplomacy, and North Korea is not very interested in that right now,” he said.

c.2022 The New York Times Company