Theme image. — © AP
North Korea has fired a ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan. The South Korean news agency Yonhap reports this on the authority of the South Korean army.
Source: BELGA
Yesterday at 05:59
The Japanese coast guard confirms that the projectile has already fallen into the sea.
This was already the third launch of a ballistic missile since the beginning of the year. A test was also carried out in January with an agile hypersonic head.
The launch came less than two weeks after North Korean state media reported that leader Kim Jong Un attended a successful test of a solid-fuel engine for a “new type of medium-range hypersonic missile.”
North Korea had said last year that it had successfully tested its first solid-fuel intercontinental missile. That is the largest category of ballistic missiles with the longest range. Pyongyang said the successful test was a major step forward for the country’s nuclear defense capabilities.
Solid-fuel rockets do not need to be refueled before launch, allowing them to be deployed more quickly. This makes it more difficult for a potential adversary to identify and destroy them.
Since the beginning of the year, Pyongyang has declared South Korea its “main enemy,” closed agencies responsible for reunification and inter-Korean dialogue, and threatened war for the slightest violation of its territory, “even but by 0.001 millimeters”.