South Korea condemns ballistic missile launch by North

The communist regime leader ordered the development of a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with extended firing range on the basis of the success made in the submarine-launched ballistic missile test in August a year ago, it said.

U.S. Strategic Command claimed North Korea’s missile was either a a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Details of the launch, including the type of missile, were scant. “Suga said: “(this is) a clearly provocative act”.

South Korean acting president Hwang Gyo-Ahn vowed a “corresponding punishment” in response. It flew a distance of about 500 km, landing in the Sea of Japan.

Nato also condemned the missile test, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urging North Korea “not to raise tensions further and to re-engage in a credible and meaningful dialogue with the global community”.

“North Korea doesn’t know any other way”, Dr Go said, adding that it fired a less powerful missile instead of an ICBM to “leave room for escalation”.

Kim, who observed the test, was quoted by the country’s official media as saying at that time that it paved the way for “another form of nuclear attack upon the United States imperialists and other hostile forces”. They give less warning of an impending launch because it takes less time to fuel the rocket.

Security experts think it could help the North to load nuclear warheads onto its ballistic missiles – most likely on Musudan and Rodong missiles – more easily than before.

“North Korea’s most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable”, Mr Abe said. The firing of the ballistic missile is assumed to be a warning against the U.S. Trump administration.

Meanwhile Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe engaged in golf diplomacy at the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida.

Abe described that test as a “grave threat” and “an outrageous act that can not be tolerated”. It was a first such test since Donald Trump became the United States president in January. Both countries appreciate the extended nuclear deterrence the USA provides, but when confronted with a nuclear North Korea, they eventually will want their own so-called nuclear deterrent.

On Sunday morning, at roughly 7:55 a.m. Korea Standard Time (KST), North Korea launched an unknown ballistic missile from its western coast, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“As such, it is a significant challenge to the Trump Administration because it has yet to develop its policies toward the region, toward North Korea, or its role in the United Nations and its use of economic sanctions”.

In telephone talks, Kenji Kanasugi, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and Kim Hong Kyun, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, agreed to urge North Korea to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding it refrain from conducting ballistic missile and nuclear tests, the ministry said.

In April a year ago, North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a new type of engine for an ICBM.

South Korea’s military is analyzing exactly what type of missile it was but there’s a strong possibility that it was a midrange Musudan type, according to officials. That would be a major step toward its stated goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could target the USA mainland.

Analysts are divided over how close Pyongyang is to realising its full nuclear ambitions, especially as it has never successfully test-fired an ICBM.