North Korea announced that it had launched the two ballistic missiles tested yesterday from a train, in the first launch of its kind. This was reported by the news agency of the Kim Jong-un regime, the KCNA, in a note in which it confirms that the mission was to “hit a designated area 800 kilometers away”.
North Korean state media then showed photos showing a missile that appears to be launched from a train rather than from a launch vehicle. The test was carried out to verify the practicability of the system, continues the North Korean agency, and to “gain competence in the methods of action in case a real war is fought”.
The test was attended by one of the highest officials of the regime, Pak Jong-chon, a member of the inner circle of the presidium of the Politburo of the Workers’ Party, the decision-making summit of the ruling party in North Korea led by Kim, but no mention is made by the North Korean leader. The deployment of the train-launched missile system, Pak said, “has great significance in increasing the country’s war deterrence.”
Yesterday’s test raised the tension between the two Koreas: Seoul responded to the double launch of Pyongyang with the first test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, becoming the seventh country in the world to have this type of technology.
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