North Korea passed off old intercontinental ballistic missile as newer version, Seoul says

The South’s defence ministry said the ICBM that Pyongyang fired last week was likely a Hwasong-15, which was successfully tested in 2017
Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said the North is preparing for a possible nuclear weapon for the first time in five years

North Korea

Bloomberg

Published: 10:03am, 30 Mar 2022

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North Korea tried to deceive the world about the type of missile it fired last week, claiming that it successfully tested a “huge,” new ICBM while actually firing off a rocket first launched in 2017, South Korean defence officials said.

The intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea launched last week was likely a Hwasong-15, which was successfully tested in November 2017 and designed to carry a single nuclear warhead, the South Korean defence ministry told lawmakers in a report on Tuesday. That’s less advanced than the Hwasong-17, a multiple-warhead missile, which Pyongyang triumphantly declared a success with a slick, highly produced video.

South Korean officials said the shadows in the video of the Hwasong-17 launch fell in a direction indicating the footage was shot between 8am and 10am, rather than Thursday afternoon, when and ICBM rocketed into space and fell in the sea off of Japan.

The cloud cover shown in the video also didn’t match the weather on the day of the launch, the officials said. That suggests North Korea may have used video from a failed Hwasong-17 test on the morning of March 16 and launched an actual Hwasong-15 to sell it as a success, as previously reported by NK News.

Kim vows to develop ‘formidable striking capabilities to tackle blackmails’

The Kim Jong-un regime has long relied on weapons tests to bolster its image as a national protector, giving it an incentive to cover up missile that failed in an explosion that could be seen in the skies over Pyongyang.

South Korea’s defence ministry said eight days was “not enough time” to identify technical problems and carry out another test of the Hwasong-17. The ministry added that North Korea needed a tool for propaganda after its citizens witnessed the failure of the earlier launch.

North Korea’s state media said Friday that Kim called the successful launch of the new missile a “priceless victory won by the great Korean people,” adding his forces are “are fully ready to thoroughly curb and contain any dangerous military attempts of the US imperialists.”

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North Korea releases images of its largest intercontinental ballistic missile test launch yet

The US was analysing the test in coordination with its allies, Defence Department spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing. “I will just tell you that we assessed that that launch was a probable ICBM,” he said, adding “I don’t have an update for you beyond that.”

The ICBM fired on Thursday reached an altitude of 6,200km and travelled 1,080km, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, higher and farther than Pyongyang’s previous ICBM test. The Hwasong-15 has a range that could deliver a nuclear warhead to all of the US mainland, weapons experts have said.

Earlier on Monday, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong told lawmakers that the government is aware that the North is preparing for a possible nuclear weapon for the first time in five years following reports that Pyongyang has begun restoration and expansion works at the previously closed Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

A satellite image of North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Photo: Maxar Technologies via Reuters

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the hermit kingdom appeared to be digging a roundabout tunnel around the closed entrance of South Portal, also known as Tunnel 3, to access the facility.

“The North abruptly stopped its initial work aimed to restore the entrance to Tunnel 3 and it started digging into the side of the tunnel,” Yonhap quoted an unnamed government source as saying.

“In this way, it seems like it will be possible to put the facilities back to use in a month.”

Minister of Unification Lee In-young also told lawmakers that their neighbour is likely to carry out further nuclear tests aimed to develop low-yield small nuclear warheads to be loaded onto missiles.

“There’s still a possibility that [in April], the North will take additional actions to hone its ICBM technology under the pretext of launching satellites,” Lee said.

South Korea president-elect to sternly deal with North Korea, reset China ties

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, after talks at the White House, urged North Korea on Tuesday to halt its ballistic missile launches and return to negotiations over its weapons programmes.

“We both urge North Korea to refrain from further provocations and return to the negotiating table for serious and sustained diplomacy,” Biden said.

North Korea thus far has rejected US appeals to hold direct talks over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Additional reporting by Park Chan-kyong