Pyongyang
North Korea conducted what could be its longest-range missile test since 2017 on Sunday, analysts said, after Japan and South Korea reported a suspected ballistic missile had been launched into the sea from the country’s east coast.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that a projectile believed to be a single ballistic missile was launched at about 7:52am (22:52 GMT) from North Korea’s Jagang Province towards the sea.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a televised briefing that the projectile is estimated to have reached an altitude of 2,000km (1,243 miles) and flown for 30 minutes to a distance of 800km (497 miles). South Korea reported the same altitude and distance.
Analysts said the data suggested it was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), possibly the Hwasong-12, which was last tested in 2017.
“That’s a bigger missile [longer-range] than anything since November 2017,” Ankit Panda from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote on Twitter. “Likely IRBM.”
Leader Kim Jong Un has said he wants to boost the country’s military and modernise its weaponry, with a hypersonic missile among seven launches that have taken place since the start of the year in a flurry of testing unseen since 2017.
North Korea on Friday confirmed it had tested two long-range cruise missiles, and said earlier this month it considered resuming “all temporarily suspended activities”, hinting that it might lift a self-imposed moratorium on testing nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
