North Korea has tested a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile, a weapon its leader Kim Jong-un says will help his country to “reliably contain” rivals in the Pacific region.
The missile was launched from a site near Pyongyang on Monday and travelled 1,500 kilometres at 12 times the speed of sound, before hitting a target in the sea, according to the country’s state media. It added that the weapon hit two peaks — of 99.8km and 42.5km.
However, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed these figures were exaggerated, saying that the missile had in fact covered a shorter distance and lacked a second peak.
Kim, who attended the launch, said the test was part of his desire to build an arsenal that “no one can respond to”.
“The hypersonic missile system will reliably contain any rivals in the Pacific region that can affect the security of our state,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted him as saying.
The missile test, which comes just weeks before Donald Trump returns to the White House, drew strong condemnation from the US and its close ally South Korea.
It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Seoul for talks on issues including North Korea’s weapons programme.
In a press conference on Monday, Blinken warned of the growing alliance between North Korea and Russia, which he described as a “two-way street”.
Pyongyang is believed to have sent more than 10,000 troops to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise counteroffensive in August. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that as many as 3,800 North Korean soldiers have been killed or injured in recent months by his soldiers.
In exchange for North Korean troops, Moscow “intends to share space and satellite technology”, Blinken said.
The US’s top diplomat added that Vladimir Putin could soon accept Kim’s nuclear weapons programme, reversing decades of Russian policy.
Blinken also sought to downplay the internal crisis that has gripped South Korea since December, when President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law. The emergency decree was struck down by parliament just hours later, and Suk-yeol was later suspended from office.
“We had serious concerns about some of the actions that President Yoon took and we communicated those directly to the government,” Blinken said.
“At the same time we have tremendous confidence in the resilience of South Korea’s democracy, in the strength of its institutions and in the efforts that it’s making to work through those institutions, pursuant to the constitution and the rule of law to resolve differences and to do so peacefully.”
