N. Korea tested rocket launchers and ‘tactical guided weapons’
SEOUL: North Korea’s state media said yesterday leader Kim Jongun had overseen a rocket and tactical guided weapons test, after the drill on Saturday raised concerns Pyongyang was escalating provocations with US nuclear negotiations deadlocked.
The North last carried out a missile test in November 2017, before a rapid diplomatic rapprochement saw tensions ease on the peninsula and a series of summits.
A return to missile launches would be likely to infuriate United States President Donald Trump, but the North’s official KCNA news agency shied away from the term in its report, saying Jong-un had ordered a “strike drill” involving “long-range multiple rocket launchers” — which are not targeted by UN sanctions resolutions — and unspecified “tactical guided weapons”.
Seoul’s Defence Ministry said yesterday an analysis of the launch indicated Pyongyang had tested “240mm and 300mm multiple rocket launchers and a new type of tactical guided weapons with a range of around 70km to 240km”.
The US and North Korea have been at loggerheads since the collapse of a Trump-Kim summit in February, when the two sides clashed over sanctions and the extent of Pyongyang’s concessions on its atomic arsenal.
But despite the latest sabrerattling from Pyongyang, Trump insisted that a breakthrough was possible.
“Kim Jong-un fully realises the great economic potential of North Korea, and will do nothing to interfere or end it,” Trump tweeted.
“He also knows that I am with him and does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!”
The US leader did not elaborate on Jong-un’s promise.
During Saturday’s drill Jongun urged his troops to remember “the iron truth that genuine peace and security are ensured and guaranteed only by powerful strength”, KCNA said.
The state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper yesterday carried 16 photos of the weapons test on its front page, including a picture of a grim-looking Jong-un clutching his binoculars in an observation post as well as several images of projectiles shooting skywards.
Trump proclaimed that the North Korean nuclear threat was over after the two sides’ historic first summit in Singapore in June, when Jong-un pledged to work towards “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.
The two have since disagreed over what that means, but Trump has insisted the leaders remain close even after their follow-up meeting in Vietnam broke up without a deal or even a joint statement, and that Jong-un would maintain his moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests.
But with negotiations lagging, the North appears to be testing the US while staying below that threshold.
The Saturday drill followed last month’s test-firing of very shortrange tactical weapons, and came days after a senior North Korean diplomat chastised US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for making “foolish and dangerous” comments during nuclear talks.