North Korea ‘hypersonic’ missile launch prompted US to pause flights
- The weapon test – Pyongyang’s second in less than a week – achieved Mach 10 speeds, South Korea’s military said
- The launch may have been timed to coincide with a UN Security Council meeting to ‘maximise political impact’, one researcher says
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
The United States briefly halted some flights on its west coast after North Korea test-launched a ballistic missile, its second weapons test in less than a week, officials said Tuesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revealed it had “temporarily paused departures at some airports along the west coast” on Monday evening local time after the launch, which South Korea’s military warned showed clear signs of “progress” from last week’s test.
The launch came as the UN Security Council met in New York to discuss last week’s test of what Pyongyang called a hypersonic missile, though Seoul has cast doubt on that claim.
But the South Korean military said the “suspected ballistic missile” launched Tuesday Korean time had reached hypersonic speeds.
02:22
North Korea fires first suspected ballistic missile of the new year
In the decade since leader Kim Jong-un took power, North Korea has seen rapid advances in its military technology at the cost of international sanctions.
Tuesday’s missile landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. While there were no immediate reports of damage, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called the launch “extremely regrettable”.
The United States condemned what it called a “ballistic missile launch”, and reaffirmed its commitment to defend both South Korea and Japan, with the FAA saying its flight halt lasted “less than 15 minutes”.
“This launch is in violation of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions and poses a threat to the DPRK’s neighbours and the international community,” the State Department said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name.
“We remain committed to a diplomatic approach to the DPRK and call on them to engage in dialogue.”
Japan targets North Korean, Chinese hypersonic missiles with US$56m rail gun plan
The missile, fired towards the sea east of the peninsula on Tuesday at around 7.27am, flew 700km (435 miles) at an altitude of around 60km at Mach 10 speed, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Hypersonic missiles travel at speeds of Mach 5 and higher and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept.
The UN Security Council meeting to discuss Pyongyang’s weapons programmes came after six countries, including the United States and Japan, called on North Korea to “engage in meaningful dialogue towards our shared goal of complete denuclearisation”.
The European Union condemned what it said was North Korea’s pursuit of “illegal weapons systems” while calling on Pyongyang to refrain from undermining its UN Security Council resolution obligations and eschewing “the environment for pursuing diplomacy and dialogue”.
Pyongyang had likely planned the latest launch to coincide with the UN meeting “to maximise its political impact,” said Shin Beom-chul, a researcher at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
He said the Tuesday launch looked like a hypersonic missile test, judging by the purported speed, but warned against reading too much into it.
“Since South Korea claimed [the January 5 test] wasn’t a hypersonic missile referring to the speed, Pyongyang may have tried to showcase its maximum speed” this time around, he said.
Hypersonic missiles were listed among the “top priority” tasks for strategic weapons in its current five-year plan, and it announced its first test – of the Hwasong-8 – in September last year.
North Korea’s new missile raises threat of submarine-borne strike
Pyongyang has also said it had successfully tested new submarine-launched ballistic missiles, a long-range cruise missile, and a train-launched weapon in 2021.
The new tests come as North Korea has refused to respond to US appeals for talks.
At a key meeting of North Korea’s ruling party last month, Kim vowed to continue building up the country’s defence capabilities, without mentioning America. Instead of the policy positions on diplomacy, for which Kim’s New Year statements are closely watched, he focused on food security and economic development.
Dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang remains stalled and the country is under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. The impoverished nation has also been under a rigid self-imposed coronavirus blockade that has hammered its economy.
