North Korea reveals that the missile launched has an intercontinental range

People watch the news of missile tests by North Korea on South Korean television.

Photo: EFE – JEON HEON-KYUN

North Korea announced this Thursday that the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that it fired on Thursday was a Hwasong-17, the one with the greatest potential range in its arsenal, a launch that was attended by leader Kim Jong-un and that it intends to respond to. to the military maneuvers that Seoul and Washington are carrying out these days in the south of the peninsula.

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Kim “stressed the need to instill fear in enemies, to really deter the possibility of a war breaking out, and to reliably guarantee the peaceful life” of North Koreans, according to the state agency KCNA.

The text indicates that the launch was carried out “in view of the serious situation in which the most unstable security environment is being generated on the Korean peninsula due to the frenetic, provocative and aggressive large-scale war simulations” that are being carried out. South Korea and the US, whose spring exercises, Freedom shield, will conclude on March 23.

North Korea regards these exercises as a rehearsal for invading its territory and has vowed to provide “an unprecedented response.”

According to KCNA, the missile, launched from the Pyongyang airport, “reached a maximum altitude of 6,045 kilometers and flew a distance of 1,000 kilometers for 4,151 seconds (69 minutes) before landing precisely in the predetermined area in the sea waters of the East (name given in the two Koreas to the Sea of ​​Japan)”.

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The projectile crashed about 250 kilometers from the island of Oshima, which is located southwest of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the Japanese Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

The North Korean test came hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol traveled to Tokyo to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, marking the first bilateral visit between the two countries in 12 years.

In fact, both leaders promised to strengthen their bilateral cooperation in security matters and with the US in the face of North Korea’s weapons developments, and indicated that they will “normalize” their pact to share military intelligence in real time.

The images published by KCNA show that Kim Jong-un witnessed the rehearsal accompanied again by his daughter. The state agency also published four images taken from space by a camera supposedly attached to the missile.

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