Fulfilling its aim to show military might, North Korea said on Friday that its two latest rounds of weapons tests conducted this week were successful.
It also looks to speed up the development of more powerful warheads.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seems to have not attended the tests carried out on Tuesday and Thursday. The tests were detected by the militaries of neighbours, South Korea and Japan.
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The leader conducted an inspection at a munitions factory, where workers pledged loyalty to their leader, who “smashes with his bold pluck the challenges of US imperialists and their vassal forces,” state media said.
According to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, the two ballistic missiles launched from a coastal area on Thursday were ‘surface-to-surface tactical guided missile’, which were armed with a conventional warhead. It said that they accurately struck a sea target.
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The state media also released photos, which suggest the weapons test-fired, were a short-range solid-fuel missile. It looks to be apparently designed after Russia’s Iskander ballistic system.
Tuesday’s launches were of a purported long-range cruise missile the North had first tested in September, said KCNA.
“The two missiles flew for more than two hours and 35 minutes and demonstrated an ability to strike targets 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) away, a performance that underscored their value in boosting the war deterrence of the country,” the agency said.
(With inputs from agencies)
