North Korea launches most powerful missile in years for record 7th weapons test of month
- Sunday’s missile launch comes as nuclear-armed North Korea flexes its military muscles while ignoring Washington’s offers of talks
- South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in says situation starting to resemble 2017, when provocative tests led to war threats between Kim and Trump
Pyongyang has never test-fired this many missiles in a calendar month before and last week threatened to abandon a nearly five-year-long self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range and nuclear weapons.
The Japanese and South Korean militaries said the missile was launched on a high trajectory, apparently to avoid the territorial spaces of neighbours, and reached a maximum altitude of 2,000km (1,242 miles) and travelled 800km (497 miles) before landing in the sea after about 30 minutes.
The flight details suggest the North tested its longest-range ballistic missile since 2017, when it twice flew intermediate-range ballistic missiles over Japan and, separately, three intercontinental ballistic missiles that showed the potential to reach deep into the American homeland.
The unusually fast pace of tests in recent days indicates North Korea’s intent to pressure the Biden administration over long-stalled nuclear negotiations as pandemic-related difficulties put further stress on an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and crippling US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme.
