The Hwasong-17 is the world’s largest liquid ICBM for road transport.
North Korea has confirmed that it fired an intercontinental ballistic missile and that it was the Hwasong-17, known as the country’s “monster missile”.
Neighbors South Korea and Japan detected the banned missile launch on Thursday, hours before South Korean President Yook Suk-yeol was due to fly to Tokyo for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
It was the latest in a series of weapons tests that coincided with Freedom Shield, the large-scale joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea that began on Monday, which Pyongyang views as a rehearsal for an attack.
In confirming the ICBM test on Friday, North Korean state media said it was intended to demonstrate a “tough response posture” and was in response to “provocative and aggressive” military exercises.
Pyongyang said the missile traveled at a maximum altitude of about 6,000 km (3,700 miles) and flew about 1,000 km (620 miles) “before it landed in a precisely predetermined area in the open waters of the East Sea of Korea,” also known as the Sea of Japan.
Pictures included in state media coverage showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watching the launch with his daughter, and included images from space apparently shot by a camera mounted on the missile.
“The strategic weapon launch exercise serves as an opportunity to issue a stronger warning to enemies who are deliberately raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula while constantly resorting to irresponsible and reckless military threats,” state news agency KCNA said.
Seoul and Washington have stepped up defense cooperation in the face of North Korea’s growing military and nuclear threats. North Korea conducted a record number of weapons tests in 2022 as it stepped up its military modernization campaign.
This week it has tested short-range ballistic missiles and strategic cruise missiles from a submarine.
On Friday, the United States and South Korea announced that they would begin large-scale amphibious landing exercises on the Ssangyong from March 20, which will also involve 40 British marines. Like Freedom Shield, amphibious exercises have been suspended since 2018 as part of an effort to promote North Korea’s denuclearization.
“The upcoming training shows the will of the South Korea-US alliance to realize ‘peace through strength,’ and we will further strengthen the combined defense posture to defend South Korea,” Marine Corps Commander Kim Gye-hwan said in Yonhap News. office.
Continued drills are likely to mean more weapons tests by North Korea, which sees such drills as a sign of hostility between the United States and South Korea.
Tests of ballistic missiles are prohibited under UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea’s nuclear program.
The Hwasong-17 is North Korea’s largest missile and the world’s largest land-based liquid-fueled ICBM.
It is believed to be capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets throughout the United States.
It was first tested in March last year, marking North Korea’s first ICBM launch since 2017.
Some analysts said some changes have been made to the regulation since then.