North Korea fired a ballistic missile into waters off its east coast on Wednesday, the South Korean military said.
The projectile was launched from Sunan, an area of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The launch is the first by North Korea since a military parade in late April in which leader Kim Jong Un vowed to accelerate the development of nuclear weapons.
Among the weaponry on display at the parade in Pyongyang was the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), several rocket launchers and a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
“True peace can be trusted and national dignity and national sovereignty can be guaranteed by the powerful self-defense force that can defeat the enemy,” Kim said in a statement carried by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) after the parade.
The North Korean leader said that the first mission of his nuclear force is to “stop the war”, but if someone tries to “take away the fundamental interests of our country, our nuclear force will have no choice but to carry out its second mission”, without give more details.
Wednesday’s test is the 13th of the year for North Korea, including one on March 16 that is presumed to have failed. By comparison, the country held eight in 2021 and just four in 2020.
Among the tests this year is the launch of an ICBM on March 24, the first with such a weapon in North Korea in more than four years.
Source: CNN Brasil
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