Major Foreign Media Quickly Report North Korea's Ballistic Missile Launch... Attention on ICBM Moratorium Withdrawal

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] On the 30th, North Korea launched a ballistic missile, prompting major foreign media to closely watch whether this will lead to the withdrawal of North Korea's moratorium on nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches.

Bloomberg News reported the news of North Korea's ballistic missile launch on the day, stating, "It appears that North Korea has launched its largest ballistic missile in the past five years as Chairman Kim Jong-un tries to bring North Korea's nuclear weapons back onto the agenda of the Joe Biden U.S. administration."

Bloomberg mentioned that the Japanese government announced the missile's maximum altitude reached about 2,000 km and it flew approximately 800 km for 30 minutes, emphasizing, "This could be consistent with the movement of a long-range missile. North Korea has not launched this type of missile since Chairman Kim halted such tests in 2017 for talks with then U.S. President Donald Trump."

Joseph Dempsey, a researcher at the UK think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), wrote on Twitter, "North Korea may have conducted a medium-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch test for the first time since 2017," adding that "the reported trajectory is similar to the IRBM Hwasong-12, which was successfully launched in May 2017," Bloomberg added.

AP News reported, "North Korea appears to have fired its most powerful missile since President Biden took office, amid a prolonged diplomatic deadlock, seemingly following a long-standing script to create a crisis to extract concessions from the U.S. and neighboring countries." AP quoted Senior Research Fellow Lee Chun-geun of the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) saying that North Korea's missile seems to be an IRBM or a weapon close to ICBM level, and "I think this means North Korea's (long-range missile test) moratorium is effectively over."

Earlier, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that at around 7:52 a.m. on the day, North Korea launched one projectile presumed to be a ballistic missile from the Jagang Province area toward the East Sea. President Moon Jae-in held an emergency full meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) at 9:25 a.m. on the same day, classified North Korea's projectile as a "medium-range ballistic missile," and discussed countermeasures.

North Korea had previously hinted at the possibility of withdrawing the moratorium on nuclear tests and ICBM launches declared in April 2018 during a Politburo meeting chaired by Kim Jong-un, General Secretary of the Workers' Party, on the 19th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.