Kim challengesUNresolutions withballistic missile test fired into sea

North Korea yesterday fired a medium-range ballistic missile into the sea, days after its leader Kim Jong Un ordered tests likely aimed at developing technology it needs to acquire to build a missile capable of reaching the United States mainland.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile flew 800 kilometres before crashing off the North’s east coast yesterday.

South Korean military officials said it wasn’t immediately known what type of missile was fired. But a South Korean defence official said it was the first medium-range missile launched by the North since April 2014 when it fired two.

A senior US defence official said the Pentagon could confirm that North Korea conducted a ballistic missile launch into the Sea of Japan.

The official said it appeared to have been a Nodong medium range ballistic missile launched from a road-mobile transporter erector launcher.

He said the test represented a violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. Yesterday’s launch came amid

heightened international

a standoff over the North’s weapons programmes in the wake of its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

In recent weeks, North Korea threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul and test-fired short-range missiles and artillery into the sea in response to tough UN sanctions imposed over its nuclear test and rocket launch. The North says it needs nuclear weapons to cope with what it calls US military threats.

On Wednesday, North Korea’s state media said Kim had ordered tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying warheads. He issued that order while overseeing a successful simulated test of a re-entry vehicle aimed at returning a nuclear warhead into the atmosphere from space so it could hit its intended target.

This led South Korean analysts to suspect the North would likely fire a missile soon to test the reentry technology.

Some analysts had also predicted the North might fire a missile carrying an empty warhead, which contain trigger devices but lack plutonium or uranium, to see if those warhead’s parts can survive the high pressure and temperatures upon reentry into the atmosphere and if they were able to detonate at the right time.

Outside experts said it is the last major technology North Korea must master to achieve its goal of developing a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland.

South Korean defence officials said North Korea had yet to acquire the re-entry technology so has yet to have a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.