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May 6, 2019

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DPRK tests multiple launchers but Trump confident 鈥榙eal will happen鈥

THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has conducted a “strike drill” for multiple launchers, firing tactical guided weapons into the East Sea in a military drill supervised by leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday, DPRK’s state media reported yesterday.

The purpose of the drill was to test performance of “large-caliber long-range multiple rocket launchers and tactical guided weapons by defense units,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

KCNA said Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over Saturday’s drills and stressed that his frontline troops should keep a “high alert posture” and enhance combat ability to “defend the political sovereignty and economic self-sustenance of the country.”

Photographs released by KCNA showed the tactical guided weapons fired could be a short-range, ground-to-ground ballistic missiles, according to Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies.

The new, solid fuel ballistic missiles can fly as far as 500 kilometers, putting the entire Korean Peninsula within its range and are capable of neutralizing the advanced US anti-missile defense system deployed in South Korea, the military analyst said.

The South Korean defense ministry, however, put the range of weapons fired on Saturday at between 70 to 240km.

DPRK had maintained a freeze in nuclear and ballistic missiles testing in place since 2017.

“With North Korea never promising to completely stop all missile testing — it only promised a self-imposed moratorium of testing long-range missiles such as ICBMs that can hit the US homeland — we should not be shocked by North Korea’s short-range launch,” said Harry Kazianis, director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest in the US.

South Korea said it’s “very concerned” about DPRK’s weapons launches, calling them a violation of the agreements to reduce animosities between the countries.

The statement, issued after an emergency meeting on Saturday of top officials at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, also urged DPRK to stop committing acts that would raise military tensions and join efforts to resume nuclear diplomacy.

DPRK’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published photos that showed Kim, equipped with binoculars, observing tests of different weapons systems.

“Praising the People’s Army for its excellent operation of modern large-caliber long-range multiple rocket launchers and tactical guided weapons, he said that all the service members are master gunners and they are capable of carrying out duty to promptly tackle any situation,” the KNCA paraphrased Kim as saying.

The United States and DPRK have been at loggerheads since the collapse of a Trump-Kim summit in February, when the two sides clashed over sanctions and the extent of Pyongyang’s concessions on its atomic arsenal.

But despite the latest sabre-rattling from Pyongyang, Trump insisted that a breakthrough was possible.

“Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it,” Trump tweeted.

“He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!”

The US leader did not elaborate on Kim’s promise.

The projectiles, fired from the east coast city of Wonsan around 9am, flew about 70km to 200km in a northeasterly direction, South Korea’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement on Saturday.

The South Korean military initially described it as a missile launch, but subsequently gave a vaguer description and said it was conducting joint analysis with the United States of the latest launches.

“Yes, the tests were the most serious since the end of 2017, but this is largely a warning to Trump that he could lose the talks unless Washington takes partial denuclearization steps offered by Kim,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

Talks stalled after a second summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi in February failed to produce a deal to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

DPRK demanded Washington to lift the US-led sanctions in return for a partial dismantling of its nuclear weapons program, while the United States wanted the quick rollback of the DPRK’s entire nuclear weapons program.

The DPRK’s last missile launch was in November 2017, when it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.


 

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