Seoul believes North Korea may soon put out its threat to resume nuclear test or intercontinental ballistic missiles after the launch on Sunday of a new missile.
Le Monde with AFP
North Korea conducted, Sunday, Jan. 30, in the seventh armament test firing of the year, which could be, according to its southern neighbor, its most powerful rocket since 2017. The last time North Korea had conducted as many shots in such a short time was in 2019, after the failure of negotiations between its leader Kim Jong-un and the US president at the time, Donald Trump.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff South Korea has indicated on Sunday at dawn, have “detected a ballistic missile intermediate-range shot at a high angle to the east.” A shot at a high angle means that the missile does not reach its maximum range.
Seoul believes that Pyongyang is trying to follow “a similar path” to that of 2017, when tensions were at their height in the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang “is close to breaking the moratorium” self-imposed on nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missiles, ruled the South Korean President Moon Jae-in in a statement.
The missile was fired from the northern province of Jagang, where North Korea has launched in recent months it has presented as hypersonic missiles. It reached a maximum altitude of 2000 km and traveled about 800 kilometers in 30 minutes before falling into the Sea of Japan, said the staff.
A desire to modernize the arsenal country
Japan considered also that it was a medium missile or long range. Tokyo “strongly protested against North Korea”, accusing him of “threatening the peace and security of Japan” with these tests, said the spokesman of the Japanese government, Hirokazu Matsuno.
The last missile of this type have been tested by Pyongyang was the Hwasong-12, who had traveled 787 km and reaches a maximum altitude of 2111 km by 2017. At the time, analysts had calculated that the projectile had the ability to travel 4500 km, and thus to reach the island of Guam, a US territory in the Pacific ocean.
The North Korean regime has threatened on January 20 to resume its nuclear tests or missile, saying it forced by “hostile” policy of the US towards her. Since the inauguration of President Joe Biden in January 2021, Pyongyang has rejected various proposals for dialogue made by Washington. And Kim Jong-un in December reiterated that his priority was to modernize the arsenal of the country.
On Friday, the North Korean news agency KCNA published images of Kim visiting a weapons factory. On one of these photos, beaming seen, wearing his usual black leather coat with belt, surrounded by uniformed official, whose face is blurred.
An economy knees
According to Soo Kim, an analyst at RAND Corporation, North Korea waited for his time and now “accelerates” its weapons testing. “Kim has retained his appetite for tests and provocations,” she explains. “Now the time has come, and missile repeated shots add a new problem to a list of international challenges already busy in Washington,” she said.
The North Korean tests involved in a difficult period for the region: China, the only major ally of the North Korean regime, welcomed the Winter Olympics in February and South Korea held a presidential election in March.
Pyongyang is preparing to celebrate the 80 th anniversary of the birth of Kim’s father, the late Kim Jong-il, in February and the 110 th anniversary his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the founding leader of the country in April.
The proliferation of weapons testing also comes at a time when the North Korean economy is on its knees by international sanctions and almost two years of closed borders in the name of the fight against Covid-19 . “Kim’s regime is listening to what is said outside about its internal weakness,” says Leif Easley, a professor at Ewha University. “So he wants to remind Washington and Seoul that any attempt to overthrow it would be too expensive.”