North Korea Fires Unidentified Cruise Missiles; Increased Tensions with Neighboring South Korea

By Le Figaro with AFP

Published 9 hours ago, Updated 3 hours ago

North Korean missile launch broadcast on South Korean television in Seoul. YONHAP / AFP

Unlike ballistic missile tests, cruise missile tests are not banned under UN sanctions against Pyongyang.

North Korea fired “several” cruise missiles Tuesday, January 30 in the waters off its west coast, the South Korean army reported, the latest launch in a series of weapons tests conducted by Pyongyang this year.

Seoul “detected several cruise missiles (unidentified) launched in the West Sea of ​​North Korea (also called the Yellow Sea, Editor’s note) around 7:00 a.m.” local time (2200 GMT Monday), the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The intelligence agencies of Washington and Seoul “are currently conducting a detailed analysis”according to the same source.

Increased number of military tests this year

Unlike ballistic missile tests, cruise missile tests are not banned under UN sanctions against Pyongyang. On Wednesday, Pyongyang also launched cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea, saying they were a new generation of projectiles. She conducted another test on Sunday, according to Seoul.

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Pyongyang has increased its military equipment tests this year, notably testing what it described as a “underwater nuclear weapons system” and a solid-fuel hypersonic ballistic missile. On Monday, state media announced that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had supervised the test firing of two new generation cruise missiles launched from a submarine.

In photos published by the official KCNA news agency, a missile rose towards the sky from a body of water, leaving behind a column of white smoke, without it being possible to confirm that the shot had indeed been fired. indeed took place from a submarine. Tests of cruise missiles, which fly in the atmosphere, do not fall under UN sanctions on North Korea. And this unlike ballistic missiles, whose trajectory takes place essentially in space. Cruise missiles fly at a lower altitude than ballistic projectiles, making them more difficult to detect and intercept.

South Korea “main enemy”

Relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have deteriorated sharply in recent months. Both sides abandoned agreements aimed at reducing tensions on both sides, strengthened border security and conducted live ammunition exercises along the separation line. In recent weeks, Kim Jong Un has designated the South as “main enemy” of his country, dissolved government agencies dedicated to reunification and contacts with the South, and threatened to declare war if his neighbor encroached on his territory “even if only by 0.001 mm”.

Kim Jong Un also declared that Pyongyang no longer recognized the Northern Boundary Line, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas, and called for constitutional changes to allow the North to“to occupy” Seoul in wartime, according to KCNA.

Kim Jong Un has threatened South Korea with a nuclear attack and called for a strengthening of Pyongyang’s military arsenal in anticipation of an armed conflict that could “burst at any time” according to him.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, for his part, declared to his government that in the event of provocation from Pyongyang, South Korea would launch a response. “several times stronger”highlighting the “overwhelming response capabilities” of his army.

In mid-January, the North claimed to have launched a solid-fueled hypersonic missile, just days after Pyongyang-led live munitions drills near the maritime border with the South led to response drills and orders shelter in several South Korean border islands.

North Korea succeeded in placing a spy satellite in orbit at the end of 2023, after having benefited, according to Seoul, from aid from Russia, in exchange for weapons to support Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine.

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2024-01-30 07:25:02
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