MONITORING (SW) – North Korea claims to have successfully tested a multiwarhead missile, a sophisticated weapon that would provide it with the means to overwhelm missile defences in the continental United States, after a launch that South Korea and Japan said had ended in failure.
Pyongyang “successfully conducted the separation and guidance control test of individual mobile warheads” on Wednesday, state news agency KCNA reported. The separated mobile warheads “were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets”, and a decoy that separated from the missile was verified by radar.
“The test is aimed at securing MIRV capability,” it said, referring to multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle technology, which allows multiple warheads to be fired on a single ballistic missile.
North Korea has been developing its weaponry as leader Kim Jong Un seeks to modernize the country’s military. A multiwarhead missile was among the weapons he said the country would pursue during a ruling party meeting in early 2021, where he also mentioned spy satellites, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons and submarine-launched missiles.
The KCNA report came a day after South Korea’s military said that Pyongyang had launched a possible solid-fuelled hypersonic weapon that had exploded in midair, while Japan reported debris had fallen into the waters off North Korea’s east coast.
South Korea’s military said a joint analysis with the US military suggested the missile blew up in its initial stage of flight, and the weapon tested was not as KCNA described.
“Today North Korea disclosed something, but we believe it’s simply a means of deception and exaggeration,” Lee Sung-joon, the spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a briefing.
The photos released by the North purporting to be of Wednesday’s test were also most likely fabricated or recycled pictures from a previous launch, he said.
South Korea, the US and Japan condemned the launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a serious threat, and warned against additional provocations in the wake of last week’s summit between Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the two leaders signed a mutual defence pact.
