North Korea fires new deadly long-range missile hitting target 1,000 miles away

Published date13 September 2021
Publication titleDaily Mirror, The: Web Edition Articles (London, England)
According to the secretive regime's state media on Monday the missile flew 930 miles before hitting its target.

The weapons landed into the country's own territorial waters with tests carried out on Saturday and Sunday, according to KCNA.

It was seen as the North's first missile launch after it tested a new tactical short-range ballistic missile in March.

North Korea also conducted a cruise missile test just hours after US President Joe Biden took office in late January.

The latest test highlighted progress in Pyongyang's weapons programme amid a gridlock over talks aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in return for U.S. sanctions relief.

Those talks have stalled since 2019.

Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers' Party's official newspaper, published photos of the new long-range cruise missile flying and being fired from a transporter-erector-launcher.

The missile is a strategic weapon that has been developed over the past two years and a key element of a five-year plan outlined in January to advance defence science and arsenals, KCNA said.

The test provides "strategic significance of possessing another effective deterrence means for more reliably guaranteeing the security of our state and strongly containing the military manoeuvres of the hostile forces," KCNA said.

"In this course, detailed tests of missile parts, scores of engine ground thrust tests, various flight tests, control and guidance tests, warhead power tests etc. were conducted with success."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not appear to have attended the test, with KCNA saying Pak Jong-chon, a member of the Workers' Party's powerful politburo and a secretary of its central committee, oversaw it.

The reclusive...

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