North Korea over the weekend successfully test-fired a new long-range cruise missile capable of hitting targets 930 miles away, according to the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The missile, dubbed “a strategic weapon of great significance,” flew 930 miles before hitting its targets and falling into the country’s territorial waters during the tests, according to the agency. The weapon system had been in development for two years.
A collage published by KCNA shows the missile being fired from a launch vehicle, as well as the rocket artillery traveling in horizontal flight. The missile reportedly traveled for 7,580 seconds in the air above the territorial land and waters of the communist country before hitting its target.
U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions have barred North Korea from testing ballistic missiles, and the country has been heavily sanctioned over its missile and nuclear weapons programs. However, the testing of cruise missiles usually generates less interest, because they aren’t explicitly banned under the UNSC.
President Donald Trump, who met with Kim Jong Un three times during his four years in office, was the first U.S. president to set foot on North Korean soil.
Park Won-gon, professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University, told AFP that the new strategic missile “poses a considerable threat,” adding that he believes it’s “very likely that there will be more tests for the development of various weapons systems.”
“If the North has sufficiently miniaturized a nuclear warhead, it can be loaded onto a cruise missile as well,” Park noted.
“This activity highlights DPRK’s continuing focus on developing its military program and the threats that pose to its neighbors and the international community,” the combatant command responsible for the Indo-Pacific region stated. “The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad.”
Cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles that can be armed with either conventional or nuclear bombs are particularly destabilizing in the event of conflict as it can be unclear which kind of warhead they’re carrying, according to analysts.
It’s unclear whether North Korea has mastered the technology needed to build warheads small enough to be carried on a cruise missile, but regime leader Kim Jong Un said earlier this year that developing smaller bombs is a top goal.
Kim didn’t appear to have attended the test, while KCNA stated that Pak Jong Chon, a member of the Workers’ Party’s powerful politburo and a secretary of its central committee, oversaw it.
