Seoul, February 18 North Korea today launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which landed in the waters of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), sending a strong message on the eve of the launch by Seoul and Washington of joint military exercises.
This launch comes after Pyongyang, which carried out a record number of missile launches in 2022, went more than a month and a half without carrying out a single weapons test, a period without North Korean activity in this area which does not hasn’t seen each other for a long time on the peninsula.
His last test was on January 1, when just three hours into the new year, he fired a short-range projectile from a large multiple rocket launcher.
But already the day before, North Korea issued the first harsh message since the aforementioned test, threatening an “unprecedented” response to the annual spring military maneuvers, called “Freedom shield”, which the South and the United States, which will also perform next week. a theoretical exercise that simulates a nuclear attack by the regime.
And today, the regime seems to have sent a dire warning by launching an ICBM that showed the potential to reach all of America.
A NEW TYPE OF MISSILE?
Pending more information on the projectile, the exact typology of which Pyongyang could reveal tomorrow, analysts and governments are today trying to establish whether what was fired is a new type of ICBM like the one the regime has paraded for the first time ten days ago during his army’s 75th anniversary celebrations.
On display at this parade appears to be a new solid-fuel ICBM, a more efficient type of missile (solid fuel makes loading and storage safer and easier to deploy projectiles) that North Korea set out to develop after having approved a weapons modernization plan in 2021.
According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), today’s launch was conducted at around 5:22 p.m. (8:22 GMT) from the Sunan area, where Pyongyang International Airport is located and from where the regime more than once launched the Hwasong-17, its most potentially long-range ICBM in its arsenal.
“The North Korean ballistic missile was launched at a very wide angle and fell into the East Sea (the name given to the Sea of Japan in the two Koreas) after traveling about 900 kilometers,” the leaders said. South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) explained in a statement.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the launch and said the missile, which according to the Japanese Ministry of Defense reached an altitude of around 5,700 kilometers, appears to have fallen into Japan’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ), about 200 kilometers west of the island of Oshima, located southwest of the northern island of Hokkaido.
TAKEN ON TV
A camera from Japan’s public broadcaster NHK located in the nearby town of Hakodate apparently captured fragments of the flaming projectile lighting up the night sky in its re-entry phase.
The missile is estimated to have crashed into the water around 6:27 p.m. local time (9:27 GMT), so it would have flown for more than an hour, and Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said it would have could fly about 14,000 kilometers, if it had been launched with a normal trajectory, enough to reach any region of the planet except South America.
For its part, the South Korean National Security Council (NSC), meeting in emergency, condemned “firmly” the North Korean test, which it considers as “a serious violation of the resolutions of the Security Council of the UN and a serious provocation which increases the tensions on the Koreans”. peninsula and in the region”.
Pyongyang carried out a record number of missile launches last year, around 50, often in response to joint maneuvers by Seoul and Washington and the deployment of strategic Pentagon assets on the peninsula.
Satellite photos also show that the Punggye-ri nuclear test center (northeast of the country) has been fully rehabilitated for nearly a year and is ready to host a new atomic test. EFE
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