North Korea has conducted a test of its longest-range ballistic missile since 2017

*PAROMITA DAS

On Sunday, North Korea carried out a flurry of missile tests in the year 2022, which is the largest missile test since 2017, sending a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile soaring into space, putting the nuclear-armed country one step closer to restarting long-range tests. The country’s dictatorship conducted its seventh test of the year, firing at least one suspected ballistic missile into the sea.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea stated that a projectile believed to be a single ballistic missile was launched from North Korea’s Jagang Province toward the ocean off its east coast at 7:52 a.m.

The move appears to be an attempt to exert pressure on the Biden administration regarding the long-stalled nuclear talks.

This comes at a time when tensions in Ukraine are high and a war could break out at any time.

The governments of Japan and South Korea have reported a suspected ballistic missile launch that went deep into space.

South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) conducted an unusual emergency meeting presided over by President Moon Jae-in due to the launch, which involved an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which North Korea has not tested since 2017.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has stated now that he’s no longer bound by the moratorium, which was announced in 2018 during a flurry of diplomacy and summits with then-US President Donald Trump and included a halt to nuclear weapons tests.

According to South Korea’s JCS and Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the missile reached an altitude of 2,000 kilometres and flew for 30 minutes to a distance of 800 kilometres.

Experts say the data could point to a test of an IRBM like the Hwasong-12, which was tested last year. The data could imply a test of an IRBM like the Hwasong-12, which was last tested in 2017, or a new variety, according to missile analysts.

The launch could make January the busiest month on record for North Korea’s missile programme, which analysts believe is expanding and developing new capabilities despite international sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting the country from testing ballistic missiles.

On Thursday, it tested two short-range ballistic missiles and their warheads, and on Tuesday, it tested an advanced long-range cruise missile system.

Because the US and its allies have showed no signs of abandoning their “hostile policies,” North Korea’s authorities suggested this month that they could resume testing.

“The United States condemns these activities and urges (North Korea) to desist from further destabilising actions,” the Indo-Pacific Command of the US military said in a statement after the launch on Sunday.

 

The launch, according to a US State Department spokesperson, highlights the threat posed by North Korea’s illegal weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes, and calls for “sustained and substantive” discussion with Pyongyang.

In a New Year’s address, Kim Jong Un urged and has tested a bewildering assortment of weapon types, airbases, and advent of new for reinforcing the military with cutting-edge weaponry, regardless of the fact that denuclearization discussions with South Korea and the US have stalled.