North Korea said on Thursday (July 13th) it had successfully tested its new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), according to state media, days after Pyongyang threatened to shoot down US spy planes that violated its space. air.
The Hwasong-18 – a new type of solid-fuel ICBM that was reportedly fired by the North Korean military only once, in April – flew 1,001 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 6,648 km before crash into the East Sea, KCNA said, using the Korean name for the Sea of Japan. Experts say the flight time, around seventy minutes, is also similar to some of North Korea’s previous ICBM launches.
The launch, which KCNA said was overseen by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was a “great explosion” that shook “the entire planet”, the state media report added. Kim Jong-un also promised that a “series of stronger military offensives” would be launched until the United States and South Korea change their policy towards the North, KCNA reported.
The confirmation of the launch, which the South Korean military reported on Wednesday, comes at a time when relations are at their lowest between the two Koreas. Kim Jong-un called his country’s nuclear power status last year “irreversible” and called for increased development of armaments, including tactical nuclear weapons.
In response, Seoul and Washington pledged that Pyongyang would face a nuclear retaliation and the “end” of its current government if it decided to use atomic weapons against them.
The launch “is a serious provocation that undermines the peace and security of the Korean peninsula” and violates United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang, the South Korean military said Wednesday, calling on Pyongyang to put an end to such actions. The United Nations, the United States and their allies, including France, also strongly condemned it on Wednesday.
The United States “strongly condemned” the firing, “in flagrant violation of several United Nations Security Council resolutions”, according to a statement from a spokesperson for the United States National Security Council, attached to the White House. . “It unnecessarily stokes tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” added Adam Hodge.
On Monday, North Korea threatened to shoot down US spy planes that violate its airspace, and condemned Washington’s plan to deploy a ballistic missile submarine near the Korean peninsula.
According to a spokesperson for the North Korean Ministry of Defense, the United States has “intensified its espionage activities beyond wartime levels”, referring to American spy planes which carried out several flights in July, described as “provocateurs”, over eight consecutive days.
“There is no guarantee that such a shocking accident as the downing of the US military’s strategic reconnaissance aircraft will not happen in the East Sea of Korea,” the carrier added. word.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s influential sister, Kim Yo-jong, said a US spy plane violated the country’s airspace twice on Monday morning, according to a separate statement. Kim Yo-jong claimed that Pyongyang would not respond directly to US reconnaissance activities outside the country’s exclusive economic zone, but would take “decisive action” if the US military crossed its maritime military demarcation line.
The United States announced in April that one of its nuclear-armed ballistic submarines would visit a South Korean port for the first time in decades, without specifying an exact date. In response to North Korean weapons tests, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has stepped up defense cooperation with Washington this year by holding joint military exercises.
Yoon Suk-yeol is due to attend a NATO summit in Lithuania this week, with the aim of strengthening cooperation in the face of growing threats from North Korea.