N Korea restarts missile testing
JAPAN: North Korea fired a ballistic missile yesterday morning, its first provocation since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and one that sets up a test for the new administration in Washington.
The launch happened while Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his golf resort in Florida, and analysts said the hawkish Abe will likely push Trump to issue a strong rebuke.
‘‘I don’t think this is designed to respond to Trump, I think this is part of Kim Jong Un’s continued efforts to try to advance his programmes,’’ said Jon Wolfsthal, a senior non-proliferation official in former President Barack Obama’s administration now at Harvard’s Belfer Centre.
‘‘But it has the added effect of calling Trump’s bluff. The real question is not what North Korea has done, but what the US is going to do about it.’’
Trump, who dined with Abe at his Florida home on Saturday evening, declined to respond to reporters’ questions about the missile test.
The missile was fired shortly before 8am from a known test site in North Pyongan province in the west of the country, not far from the border with China, and flew over the Korean peninsula and into the Sea of Japan, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said.
They were still working to analyse data from the projectile but said it appeared to be a mediumrange Musudan missile, the type that North Korea had been trying to perfect last year.
The Musudan is technically capable of flying as far as 3900 kilometres, putting Guam within range and almost reaching Alaska. But the joint chiefs said this missile appeared to fly only 500km .
‘‘The military is determining if the missile is a modified Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile or the shorter range Rodong missile,’’ a military official said.
But some analysts thought the launch could have been the first stages of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the US.
‘‘I think we’re all waiting for the first two stages of the ICBM,’’ said Jeffrey Lewis of the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. ‘‘They finished testing that engine on the stand so now it’s time to test it in the air.’’
Kim Jong Un’s regime has declared a goal of producing an intercontinental missile that can deliver a nuclear payload to the US and last year appeared to be making a concerted effort toward achieving that goal.
It conducted two nuclear tests and dozens of missile tests, including eight Musudan tests. Only one, in June, was a success, flying about 450kmand reaching a surprisingly high altitude. But the regime had not fired any since October.
In Seoul, Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn convened a meeting of the national security council and said the South Korean government would work with its allies to ensure a ‘‘concerted response to punish North Korea’’.
– Washington Post