North Korea’s latest missile launch was a successful test of a new type of « ground-to-sea cruise rocket », Pyongyang’s state media said Friday. The official…
North Korea’s latest missile launch was a successful test of a new type of « ground-to-sea cruise rocket », Pyongyang’s state media said Friday.
The official KCNA news agency said the rocket was a « powerful attack means capable of striking any enemy group of battleships attempting at military attack on the DPRK (North Korea) from the ground at will ».
KCNA added the missiles « accurately detected and hit the floating targets on the East Sea of Korea ».
Pyongyang’s fifth test in less than a month was launched in defiance of global pressure to rein in its weapons program.
The reclusive state has ordered three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile, and now Thursday’s cruise missile tests since the South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in took power in early May.
Moon advocated reconciliation with Seoul’s isolated, unpredictable neighbour but has taken a more stern position in the wake of the missile tests, which pose a policy challenge to the left-leaning leader.
The launches come less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Kim Jong-Un’s regime in response to recent ballistic missile tests.
The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region.
The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States — something President Trump has vowed « won’t happen ».
