North Korea test-fired what appeared to be at least one ballistic missile just as its envoy was preparing to address the United Nations, in a pointed gesture of defiance against international resolutions meant to prevent such launches.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile was fired at 6:40 a.m. local time from land toward waters to the east and didn’t offer further details of the flight. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the launch appeared to be a ballistic missile, telling reporters the government is analyzing details and “will step up its vigilance.”
The launch comes after a test earlier this month of two short-range ballistic missiles from a train. That was North Korea’s first test of ballistic missiles since March, and followed what Pyongyang said was a test of new, long-range cruise missiles a few days earlier with ranges of about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) — enough to strike all of South Korea and most of Japan.
The latest launch came just before North Korea’s United Nations envoy, Kim Song, was about to speak to the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York. He used his time at the podium to repeat an often-used demand for the U.S. to drop what Pyongyang sees as a hostile policy toward it.
“I am convinced that positive prospects will open up for U.S.-DPRK relations and inter-Korean relations if the U.S. refrains from threatening the DPRK and gives up its hostility toward it,” Kim Song said, referring to North Korea by its formal name. U.N. Security Council resolutions bar North Korea from ballistic missiles testing.
North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly was also scheduled to hold a session Tuesday to discuss local issues.
President Joe Biden’s administration has reiterated the U.S. does not have hostile intent toward North Korea and urged Pyongyang to return to nuclear disarmament talks that have been stalled for more than two years.
The launch from a train was a first for North Korea, which has been modernizing its missile arsenal with solid-fuel rockets that are easier to hide and fire off in quick strikes. It has been building up its capabilities to strike the U.S. mainland with nuclear warheads and deliver tactical strikes against South Korea and Japan, which host tens of thousands of American troops.
The train launch came a few hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in observed his government’s test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. North Korea often times its tests for political purposes.
Over the weekend, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, reached out to South Korea for the second time in as many days, saying Pyongyang would consider taking part in another inter-Korean summit and declaring an end to the 1950-1953 war if Seoul would adopt a less hostile policy.
Her messages may have been more about trying to win concessions from Moon, who has pledged to seek reconciliation with his neighbor to the North, than actually trying to reach a peace deal.
Pyongyang has touted efforts to build up its tactical strike capability, with Kim Jong Un telling a top ruling party meeting before Biden came to office in January he was putting North Korea on a path to develop more advanced nuclear technologies and missiles. The plan included making smaller and lighter nuclear weapons and suggested a sweeping modernization of the country’s nuclear and conventional forces.
In addition to the missile testing, North Korea in July appears to have restarted plutonium-production operations at its Yongbyon nuclear plant, a U.N. watchdog said. It’s also expanding a plant to enrich uranium at the facility, which could indicate it wants to ramp up production capacities of that fissile material.
The Yongbyon complex, which has served as the crown jewel of North Korea’s atomic program, is an aging facility about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Pyongyang that once was the only source of its fissile material. It churned out roughly enough plutonium each year for one atomic bomb.
Since then, North Korea has used uranium enrichment as the main source of fissile material for weapons, with nuclear experts saying the state can produce enough weapons-grade material for at least six nuclear bombs a year and has at least more than one enrichment plant outside of Yongbyon.
