North Korea fires several cruise missiles: Seoul military

According to Seoul’s military, North Korea launched several cruise missiles on Sunday, the most recent in a string of actions meant to inflame tensions between the nuclear-armed nation.

The launch occurs just a few days after Pyongyang claimed to have conducted the first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles when it fired several cruise missiles into the Yellow Sea.

In the new year, Pyongyang has increased its testing of armaments, demonstrating its “underwater nuclear weapon system” and its hypersonic ballistic missile powered by solid fuel.

“Our military detected several unidentified cruise missiles fired near waters around North Korea’s Sinpo area at 8:00 am (2300 GMT) today,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The JCS said the launch was under analysis by South Korean and US intelligence authorities, adding it was “closely monitoring North Korea’s additional movements and activities.”

The present UN sanctions on Pyongyang do not prohibit the testing of cruise missiles, in contrast to their ballistic equivalents.

Cruise missiles are more difficult to identify and intercept than more advanced ballistic missiles since they are often jet-propelled and travel at a lower height.

North Korea announced on Thursday that it had tested the Pulhwasal-3-31, a new generation of strategic cruise missiles it is developing, for the first time the previous day.

The test was “a process of constant updating of the weapon system and a regular and obligatory activity,” the state news agency KCNA said. It did not specify how many missiles were fired.

“The test-fire had no impact on the security of neighboring countries and has nothing to do with the regional situation,” the agency said.

Recent months have seen a sharp deterioration in ties between the two Koreas, with both sides jettisoning key tension-reducing agreements, ramping up frontier security, and conducting live-fire drills along the border.

Earlier this month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the South his country’s “principal enemy”, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.

In Seoul, President Yoon Suk Yeol told his cabinet that should the nuclear-armed North carry out a provocation, South Korea would hit back with a response “multiple times stronger”, pointing to his military’s “overwhelming response capabilities”.

At Pyongyang’s year-end policy meetings, Kim threatened a nuclear attack on the South and called for a build-up of his country’s military arsenal ahead of armed conflict he warned could “break out any time”.

In January, the North launched a solid-fuel hypersonic missile, just days after Pyongyang staged live-fire exercises near the country’s tense maritime border with South Korea, which prompted counter-exercises and evacuation orders for some border islands belonging to the South.

Kim also successfully put a spy satellite into orbit late last year, after receiving what Seoul said was Russian help, in exchange for arms transfers for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.