Update: North Korea launches more short-range ballistic missiles

North Korea launched what South Korea described as two “short-range missiles” into the East Sea (Sea of Japan) on 25 July: the country’s first missile test since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump agreed to resume stalled denuclearisation talks in a meeting held at the Korean Demilitarised Zone on 30 June.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that the missiles were fired at 0534 h and 0557 h local time from an area near North Korea’s eastern port city of Wonsan in Kangwon Province.

The Yonhap news agency quoted the JCS as saying on 26 July that both missiles flew around 600 km. They reportedly reached an altitude of around 50 km.

One of the short-range ballistic missiles that North Korea launched in 25 July in a “solemn warning [to] South Korean military warmongers”. (KCNA)

An image of one of the missiles being launched from a transporter-erector-launcher (TEL), which was released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on 26 July, shows a weapon similar to those that North Korea test-fired on 4 and 9 May. The missile type, which the US military has tentatively designated the KN-23, bears a resemblance to the 9M723/9M723E series of Russian close- to short-range ballistic missiles used by the Iskander system.

The KCNA also released a statement on 26 July saying the missile firings, which were “personally organized” by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, were intended to send a “solemn warning [to] South Korean military warmongers” who are introducing “ultramodern offensive weapons into South Korea” and pushing to “hold [a] military exercise in defiance of the repeated warnings” from Pyongyang.