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Recordings from North Korean media to show the test
Photo: STR / AFP
A national holiday parade has just taken place, so Pyongyang is stepping up again.
North Korea claims to have tested a new "long-range cruise missile."
Missiles of the newly developed type were fired on Saturday and Sunday, reported the official news agency KCNA.
The tests were "successful".
South Korea confirmed the reports.
It was the first North Korean missile tests since March.
The missiles had flown over North Korean land and sea and hit targets 1500 kilometers away, KCNA reported.
High-ranking government officials were present at the tests.
The agency called the new type of missile a "strategic weapon of great importance."
This gives North Korea "another effective means of deterring" "hostile forces".
The Japanese government expressed its "concern" in an initial reaction.
The state-run North Korean newspaper "Rodong Sinmun" published pictures of a rocket rising from one of five tubes in a ball of fire.
The pipes were therefore installed on a carrier vehicle.
Another picture showed a rocket in horizontal flight motion.
The missile tests took place a few days after a parade in the capital Pyongyang on the national holiday, which was much less martial than in previous years.
This time the parade did not show rockets, but mainly tractors and fire engines.
The largest weapons on display were tractor-drawn artillery.
Talks with the US are on hold
The sanctions are making the economy of the communist-led country difficult to create.
However, apart from the nuclear program, the international punitive measures only relate to ballistic missiles.
The development of cruise missiles by North Korea, however, is not subject to sanctions.
Ballistic missiles are fired at great heights and then fall to the ground due to the force of gravity.
Cruise missiles, on the other hand, fly at low altitudes and are remotely controlled.
North Korea has not carried out nuclear tests since 2017.
There have also been no more ICBM ballistic missile tests since then.
Talks between the US and North Korea about the dismantling of the North Korean nuclear arsenal have been on hold since a summit meeting in 2019 between ruler Kim Jong Un and then US President Donald Trump.
Under US President Joe Biden, who has been in office since the beginning of this year, there has so far been no rapprochement between Washington and Pyongyang.
jok / AFP
