Pyong Yong. North Korea test-fires what could be new kind of longer-range missile . North Korea has fired what Japan said could be a new type of missile, in an early diplomatic test for South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in.
Japan did not specify what type of missile was involved in Sunday’s launch, which came after Pyongyang indicated it was open to talks with the South on its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
Moon called the launch a “reckless provocation” after holding an emergency meeting with his national security advisers, adding that it was a “clear violation” of UN security council resolutions banning North Korean missile tests.
The US Pacific Command confirmed a missile had been launched from a site in Kusong, north-west of the capital Pyongyang, but added that “the flight is not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).”
Japanese and US military officials said it had flown about 800km before falling, without incident, in waters about 400km off the east coast of North Korea. Japan’s defence minister, Tomomi Inada, said the missile reached an altitude of 2,000km.
David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said flight data suggested the missile could be more advanced than others in North Korea’s arsenal. “If the information that has been reported about the test are correct, the missile has considerably longer range than its current missiles,” he said.
Citing Japanese reports, Wright said the 30-minute flight time “would instead require a missile that was highly lofted, reaching an apogee of about 2,000km while splashing down at a range of 700km. If that same missile was flown on a standard trajectory, it would have a maximum range of about 4,500km.”
Wright added: This range is considerably longer than the estimated range of the Musudan missile, which showed a range of about 3,000km in a test last year.
He noted Guam, a US territory that houses a military base, is 3,400 km from North Korea. Reaching the US west coast would require a missile with a range of more than 8,000km. Hawaii is about 7,000km away.
