N Korea fires missile towards Japan

NORTH Korea fired a submarine-launched missile yesterday that flew about 500km towards Japan, a show of improving technological capability for the isolated country that has conducted a series of launches in defiance of UN sanctions.

Having the ability to fire a missile from a submarine could help North Korea evade a new anti-missile system planned for South Korea and pose a threat even if nucleararmed North Korea’s land-based arsenal was destroyed, experts said.

The ballistic missile was fired at around 5.30am from near the coastal city of Sinpo, where a submarine base is located, officials at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defence Ministry said.

The projectile reached Japan’s air defence identification zone (Adiz) for the first time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a briefing, referring to an area of control designated by countries to help maintain air security.

The missile was fired at a high angle, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported, an indication that its full range would be 1 000km at an ordinary trajectory.

The distance indicated the North’s push to develop a submarine-launched missile system was paying off, officials and experts said.

North Korea’s “SLBM (submarinelaunched ballistic missile) technology appears to have progressed”, a South Korean military official said.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the test appeared to be a success.

“We don’t know the full range, but 500km is either full range or a full range on a lofted trajectory. Either way, that missile works.”

The launch came two days after South Korea and the United States began annual military exercises in the South that North Korea condemns as preparation for an invasion.

Beijing is Pyongyang’s main ally but has joined past UN Security Council resolutions against the North.

It has been angered by what it views as provocative moves by the US and South Korea, including their decision last month to base the Thaad (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) anti-missile system in South Korea.

China opposes North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme as well as any words or deeds that cause tension on the Korean peninsula, its foreign minister, Wang Yi, said yesterday at a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo.

South Korea’s foreign ministry condemned the launch and warned of more sanctions and isolation for its rival that “will only speed up its self-destruction”.

“This poses a grave threat to Japan’s security, and is an unforgivable act that damages regional peace and stability markedly,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

He said that Japan had lodged a stern protest. — Reuters