North Korea has been pushing hard for years to acquire the ability to fire nuclear-armed missiles from submarines, the next key piece in an arsenal that includes a variety of weapons including ones with the potential range to reach American soil.Īcquiring submarine-launched missiles would be a worrying development because that would make it harder for the North's rivals to detect launches and provide the country with retaliatory attack capability. mainland in a breach of a 2018 self-imposed moratorium on such weapons tests to maximize its pressure campaign. They say the North may even test-launch long-range missiles directly threatening the U.S. Some experts say North Korea might continue its weapons tests for a couple of more months until it halts them in consideration of the Winter Olympics slated for February in China, its last major ally and economic pipeline. and North Korea have been stalled for more than two years because of disagreements over an easing of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea in exchange for denuclearization steps by the North.
Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi had said Tuesday that the North Korean missile flew on "an irregular trajectory" while traveling as far as 600 kilometers (360 miles).
The professor said North Korea likely plans to load this missile on a new submarine it disclosed in 2019 while placing bigger SLBMs on larger submarines it is pushing to build in the future. He said the new missile was likely a small-sized weapon displayed during a defense exhibition last week. Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said the North Korean weapon tested Tuesday was likely derived from its land-based, nuclear-capable KN-23 missile whose highly maneuverable and lower-trajectory flight provides it with greater chances of evading missile defense systems. Security Council scheduled emergency closed consultations on North Korea on Wednesday afternoon at the request of the United States and United Kingdom. Security Council resolutions, and urged Pyongyang to refrain from further provocations and "engage in sustained and substantive dialogue," the State Department said. condemnation of the launch, which violates multiple U.N. The launch came days before Sung Kim, Biden's special envoy on North Korea, was to travel to Seoul to discuss with allies the possibility of reviving diplomacy with Pyongyang.Īt a meeting in Washington with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Kim emphasized U.S.
The North has so far rebuffed such overtures, saying U.S. The Biden administration has repeatedly said it's open to resuming nuclear diplomacy with North Korea "anywhere and at any time" without preconditions. President Joe Biden took office in January. Tuesday's launch is the most high-profile weapons test by North Korea since U.S. One image shows the upper parts of what looks like a submarine on the surface of the sea. Photos published by North Korea show a missile rising and spewing bright flames above a cloud of smoke from the sea. KCNA said Tuesday's launch was made from "the same 8.24 Yongung ship," a submarine that North Korea said it used to conduct its first submarine-launched strategic ballistic missile test in 2016. South Korea's military described the missile as a short-range, submarine-launched ballistic missile and said the launch was made from waters near the eastern port of Sinpo, where North Korea has a major shipyard building submarines. The North's neighbors said Tuesday that they detected the North's missile firing and said the weapon landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
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