“The new type of tactical weapon … is of great importance for drastically improving the firepower of long-range first-line artillery units and for enhancing the efficiency of tactical nuclear weapons,” the official Korean Central News Agency said early Sunday. . , without specifying when the test was performed. He said the test was successful. The South Korean military said Sunday that North Korea fired two missiles from its east coast into the sea on Saturday. The missiles, fired from the Hamhung area at about 6 p.m. flew 110 kilometers (68 miles) at a maximum altitude of 25 kilometers at a maximum speed of less than 4 Mach, said the South Korean chief of staff. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un applauds as he observes what the state media reported as the test shot of a new type of weapon. Photo: KCNA VIA KNS / AFP / Getty Images Photographs taken by Rodong Sinmun showed Kim smiling – surrounded by uniformed officials – applauding as he watched what he said was a test firing of a gun. The North Korean said Kim had given a military research team “important instructions for further development of defense capabilities and nuclear combat forces”. On Friday, North Korea celebrated the birthday of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung’s grandfather, with a huge public procession, fireworks and synchronized dances – but not a military parade as many observers had predicted. Analysts and officials in South Korea and the United States also thought that a nuclear test was possible on the important anniversary. The anniversary celebrations came three weeks after North Korea conducted the largest intercontinental ballistic missile test ever – the first time Kim’s most powerful weapon was launched at full range since 2017. This test was the culmination of a record number of penalty shootouts this year and marked the end of a self-imposed moratorium on long-range testing and nuclear testing. Large-scale trials and nuclear tests have stopped since Kim met then-US President Donald Trump over a doomed diplomacy that collapsed in 2019. Officials and analysts say North Korea may conduct its seventh nuclear test in the coming weeks. Satellite imagery has shown signs of new activity in a tunnel at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, which North Korea says was demolished in 2018 before the first Trump-Kim summit. North Korea has tested nuclear weapons six times since 2006 and has advertised the success of its latest and most powerful in 2017 – a hydrogen bomb with an estimated output of 250 kilotons. In a new nuclear test, experts say Pyongyang will seek to miniature the nuclear warheads to be mounted on its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). South Korean officials said Pyongyang could even hold a military parade or test weapons on April 25 or around April 25, the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army. This anniversary coincides with the joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington, which are scheduled to begin on Monday. South Korea and the United States hold regular military exercises, but Pyongyang has long protested the exercises as a rehearsal for war. With Agence France-Presse and Reuters
