It was the latest in a series of launches by the North but the first since October 2, when it fired a sea-launched missile.
Kim Jong-un (Photo: IANS)
North Korea carried out a “successful” new test of its “super-larger multiple rocket launcher” system, the latest in a series of provocations by Pyongyang, according to reports on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, South Korea’s military said that the North had launched two short-range projectiles from South Pyongan province. They each flew approximately 370 kilometres (230 miles).
It was the latest in a series of launches by the North but the first since October 2, when it fired a sea-launched missile.
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Thursday’s test was conducted to “verify the security of launchers’ continuous fire system,” the state Korean Central News Agency reported from Pyongyang.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who had personally supervised previous tests of the “super-large” system, “expressed satisfaction… and sent congratulations” to the team involved, KCNA said.
Nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington are currently at a standstill.
Kim and US President Donald Trump adopted a vaguely-worded statement on the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” at their first summit in Singapore in June last year, but little progress has since been made.
Trump and Kim then agreed to restart working-level talks during a brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula in June.
Earlier this month, the most high profile working-level nuclear talks between the US and North Korea in the Swedish capital of Stockholm collapsed after Pyongyang started accusing Washington of coming to the negotiations table “empty-handed”.
In August this year, North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into the East Sea.
North Korea has repeatedly issued warnings against the combined military exercise between South Korea and the US, threatening that it would seek “a new way” rather than engagement if Seoul goes ahead with such a rehearsal for invasion.
(With inputs from agency)
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