(Adnkronos) – North Korea has tested one of its most powerful ballistic missiles with a launch towards the Sea of Japan, Yonhap news agency reported, citing South Korean military sources. The missile’s flight was the longest, and the altitude reached the highest, of any other vector ever tested by Pyongyang, denounced Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, according to whom it was an intercontinental ballistic missile that exceeded 7 thousand kilometers in altitude and flew for an hour and 26 minutes. The missile would be capable of hitting the United States.
The South Korean military recorded a launch that took place from the Pyongyang region around 7.10 this morning (local time), a few hours after Washington and Seoul’s appeal to North Korea to withdraw North Korean military forces from Russia, where 10,000 North Korean soldiers would have been deployed. Pyongyang confirmed a “crucial” test as part of its intention to “strengthen its nuclear forces, under the supervision of Kim Jong un”.
“This test fully responds to the goal of informing our rivals of our intention to react,” Kim said at the time of the launch, quoted by the North Korean agency Kcna, speaking of an “appropriate military action.” The United States and their allies in the region have provoked an escalation of tensions and “pose a threat” to North Korea’s security, he added. The White House “strongly” condemned the launch as a “flagrant violation” of United Nations Security Council resolutions. North Korea tested another ICBM last year. The missile tested today would have fallen off Japan’s exclusive economic zone, 300 kilometers west of the island of Hokkaido.
