SEOUL – North Korea fired another round of cruise missiles on Jan 30, Seoul’s military said, extending a week-long flurry of tests that Pyongyang has said include a new generation of weapons.
South Korea’s military “detected several unknown cruise missiles launched into the West Sea of North Korea at around 7am”, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
South Korean and United States intelligence agencies were “conducting a detailed analysis”, the JCS said.
“Our military is cooperating closely with the US while strengthening surveillance and vigilance, and is closely monitoring North Korea’s activities,” it added.
Unlike for their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang.
Cruise missiles tend to be jet-propelled and fly at a lower altitude than more sophisticated ballistic missiles, making them harder to detect and intercept.
Recent months have seen a sharp deterioration in ties between the two Koreas, with both sides jettisoning key tension-reducing agreements, ramping up frontier security and conducting live-fire drills along the border.
Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an “underwater nuclear weapon system” and a solid-fuel hypersonic ballistic missile.
On Jan 29, the North’s state media said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had overseen the test launch of a new strategic cruise missile from a submarine.
Last week, Pyongyang said it had also conducted its first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles.
“It is believed that North Korea has commenced mass production of cruise missiles ordered by Russia,” Dr Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP.
Washington and Seoul have accused the North of supplying Moscow with weapons for use in Ukraine, despite a raft of UN sanctions banning any such arrangements.
“It looks like they are conducting... experiments of these (ordered) missiles at sea, causing disruption to South Korea and the United States,” Dr Anh said, adding that all guided missiles needed to undergo a minimum of five tests before being deployed on the battlefield.
In December 2023, Seoul’s spy agency issued a statement forecasting that Pyongyang would carry out military and cyber provocations in 2024, targeting election campaigns in the US and South Korea.
Mr Kim in late 2023 instructed his aides to “come up with measures to cause a big stir in South Korea early next year”, according to the statement by Seoul’s spy agency.
In recent weeks, Mr Kim has declared the South his country’s “principal enemy”, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach and threatened war over “even 0.001mm” of territorial infringement.
He also said Pyongyang would not recognise the two countries’ de facto maritime border, the Northern Limit Line, and called for constitutional changes allowing the North to “occupy” Seoul in war, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.
“North Korea seems to indirectly support former US president Donald Trump by emphasising the shortcomings of South Korea and (the Joe Biden administration’s) policy towards North Korea by increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula,” Professor Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, told AFP.
Pyongyang’s latest launch comes after South Korea conducted a 10-day special forces infiltration drill, which ended on Jan 25, off the country’s east coast, “in the light of serious security situations” with the North. AFP
