SEOUL, Jan 28 (Reuters) – North Korea conducted tests of an improved long-range cruise missile and a tactically-guided missile warhead this week as leader Kim Jong Un visited a factory in ammunition producing a “major weapon system”, according to official media. KCNA said Friday.

Tensions are mounting over North Korea’s series of six weapons tests in 2022, among the most missile launches it has carried out in a month. The launches sparked international condemnation and a new push for sanctions from the United States.

An updated long-range cruise missile system was tested on Tuesday, and another test took place on Thursday to confirm the power of a conventional warhead for a surface-to-surface tactical guided missile, KCNA said.

Kim did not attend the tests, but during a visit to the munitions factory he hailed “rapid progress in the production of major weapons” to implement the decisions of the ruling Workers’ Party taken at a meeting last month, a separate dispatch said.

“The factory occupies a very important position and duty in modernizing the country’s armed forces and realizing the national defense development strategy,” Kim said.

KCNA did not specify the weapons or the location of the factory. Kim called for strengthening national defenses to deal with an unstable international situation at the party rally. Read more

North Korea last week said it would strengthen its defenses against the United States and consider resuming “all temporarily suspended activities”, hinting at the lifting of a self-declared moratorium on bomb testing. nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

At the factory, Kim called for “an all-out campaign” to produce “powerful advanced weapons”, and his workers touted his dedication to “crushing…challenges from the US imperialists and their vassal forces” seeking to violate their right to self-defense, calling it “the harshest adversity ever”.

Pyongyang has defended the missile launches as its sovereign right of self-defense and accused Washington and Seoul of pulling double standards when it comes to weapons testing.

No ICBMs or nuclear weapons have been tested in North Korea since 2017, but a series of short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) launches have begun amid stalled denuclearization talks following a failed summit with the United States in 2019.

US Department of Defense press secretary John Kirby called the latest launches “destabilizing” and called on Pyongyang to “stop these provocations”.

The European Union also issued a statement saying the tests posed a threat to international and regional peace and security and undermined efforts to resume dialogue and help the people of the country.

MISSILE FACTORY?

Photos released by KCNA showed a slimmer Kim in a black leather coat and suit smiling during the trip to the factory, with some officials’ faces blurred.

Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the US-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said the factory appeared to be the February 11 factory at the Ryongsong Machine Complex in Hamhung, the country’s second-largest city on its east coast, citing a similar double column. vertical towers seen in past KCNA footage, though repainted.

The facility appeared to have been remodeled, but a giant metal tube inside a flow-forming machine in a new hall where Kim was seen looked like an engine casing for a KN-23 or another SRBM, said Lewis on Twitter.

In Tuesday’s test, two long-range cruise missiles traveled 1,800 km (1,118 miles) for 9,137 seconds and hit a target island off the east coast, showing practical combat performance, KCNA said. .

The two tactical guided missiles tested on Thursday also accurately hit the target and proved the explosive power of their warhead as designed, he added.

KCNA photos also showed a long-range missile launched from a transporter-erector-launcher, bursting into flames, before igniting a fire on an island. In other images, a shorter-range missile was seen rising into the sky above a cloud of dust and then hitting an island.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said they detected both tests and the short-range missiles flew about 190 km (118 miles) to an altitude of 20 km (12.4 miles) . Read more

Just this month, North Korea also tested tactical guided missiles, two “hypersonic missiles” capable of reaching high speed and maneuvering after takeoff, and a rail missile system.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korea Studies in Seoul, said Pyongyang is likely to increase pressure and may fire an ICBM or other powerful weapon on the 80th and 110th anniversaries of the late father’s birthdays. of Kim and grandfather in February and April, two major holidays in the country.

“The ongoing series of tests should be aimed at highlighting the North’s increasingly diverse missile arsenal and essentially staging a show of force against the United States,” he said.

Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Sandra Maler and Lincoln Feast.

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