Seoul: N. Korea fired old ICBM, not new big one, last week
Source: AP
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea on Tuesday dismissed North Korea’s claim to have launched a newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile last week, accusing the country of firing a less-powerful existing weapon and fabricating data following an earlier failed launch.
North Korea said it launched a Hwasong-17 missile, its longest-range developmental ICBM, last Thursday in its biggest weapons test in years. Its state media called the launch “a historical event” and released a stylized Hollywood-style video showing leader Kim Jong Un, in sunglasses and leather jacket, supervising the launch.
But South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it has determined that what North Korea fired wasn’t a Hwasong-17 but a Hwasong-15, another ICBM that it successfully tested in 2017.
Both missiles are potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. But analysts say the Hwasong-17 has a longer potential range and its huge size suggests that it’s designed to carry multiple nuclear warheads to defeat missile defense systems. Believed to be about 25 meters (82 feet) long, the Hwasong-17 is, by some estimates, the world’s biggest road-mobile ballistic missile system.
FILE - This photo distributed by the North Korean government shows what it says is a test-fire of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), at an undisclosed location in North Korea on March 24, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-seoul-south-korea-north-korea-47a7e85c51102bc023db53c6c093186d
= new reply since forum marked as read
