North Korea has launched another ballistic missile from a submarine into the Sea of ​​Japan

North Korea launched this Saturday a ballistic missile from a submarine (SLBM), as warned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea in an official statement. This is the fifteenth test this year.

“Our military detected today at 2:07 pm (5:07 GMT) that North Korea was firing a short-range ballistic missile, estimated to be an SLBM, from the coastal area of ​​Sinpo in South Hamgyong province. in the eastern sea“, they pointed out from the South Korean government.

Sinpo, on the east coast of the country, is where the North Korean Submarine and Ballistic Missile Development Center for submersibles, and this is the area where the regime typically tests this type of projectiles.

Faced with the possibility of further launches, the South Korean military said it was “closely monitoring related movements in close cooperation with the United States.”

The launch comes after North Korea fired on Wednesday a projectile believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The fact that the state media did not report this test the next day, as they usually do, suggests that ICBM test failedas happened with another ICBM launched on March 16.

In addition, this Saturday’s exam will come three days before conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, who promised a less tolerant position on the nuclear ambitions of the neighbor to the north.

Yoon is also scheduled to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden in Seoul on May 21, as many analysts believe Pyongyang is ready to conduct a new nuclear test, which will be the first of its kind since 2017.

Test record and nuclear threat

North Korea, which is still hermetically sealed from the outside of the coronavirus pandemic and has no vaccination plan, continues to reject offers made by the U.S. president to resume disarmament talks, which were delayed in 2019.

The Kim Jong-un regime even approved a five-year arms modernization plan last year that was behind the volume missile test record. In addition, satellites have been detecting activity for several months indicating that North Korea will soon conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.

Despite international sanctions against its nuclear and weapons program, North Korea has re-imported the modernization of its arsenal and weapons. tried many illicit projectiles.

Experts said the unusually fast-paced test activity underscores a brinkmanship aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of ​​North Korea as a nuclear power and eliminate destructive US sanctions.

There are also signs that North Korea is restoration of tunnels in a nuclear test setwhere it conducted its sixth and final nuclear test in September 2017, amid possible preparations for another explosion test.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accompanied his missile tests with warnings that the North could actively use its nuclear weapons if threatened or provoked, which experts say possibly describes a rising nuclear tension which will create greater concern for South Korea and Japan.

With information from EFE and AP.

GRB