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North Korea: a salvo of missiles fired to end a year of record launches

2022-12-31T07:27:17.634Z


The day after a strategic political meeting around Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang tested its already well-developed launch capabilities on Saturday.


Finish with a bang.

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles at sea on the eastern Korean peninsula on Saturday, according to the South Korean military.

The firings are the latest in an unprecedented number of missile tests by North Korea this year, as Pyongyang pursues the development of high-powered nuclear weapons, and relations have strained with its southern enemy brother -Korean since the spring and the arrival of a new president in Seoul, Yoon Suk-yeol.

The three short-range ballistic missiles were fired around 8 a.m. local time (midnight French time) from North Hwanghae province, south of the capital Pyongyang.

According to the Ministry of Defense of Japan, they flew at an altitude of about 100 km and covered a distance of about 350 km to the east, a data confirmed by the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, before to fall into the Sea of ​​Japan.

The launches come five days after a rare foray - the last was in 2017 - by five North Korean drones into southern airspace, one of which reached north of the capital, Seoul.

Despite deploying fighter jets and attack helicopters for five hours, the South Korean military failed to intercept these drones, which drew widespread criticism.

The firings could also be a response to South Korea's Defense Ministry's announcement on Friday of a test flight of a solid-fuel propellant space launcher, a project that is expected to boost its capabilities satellite reconnaissance and surveillance.

North Korean state media KCNA has yet to mention the shootings, but did report that leader Kim Jong Un chaired a party meeting on Friday to decide policy and strategy for 2023.

Read alsoNorth Korea: a law authorizes preventive atomic strikes, Paris denounces "a threat to peace"

2022 will have been marked by intense ballistic activity: 37 days of launch, for approximately 70 missiles sent.

Of more than 270 missile launches and nuclear tests by North Korea since 1984, more than a quarter have taken place this year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defense Project.

In 2020, North Korea conducted four missile tests.

In 2021, the double.

In 2022, it hit records, even launching 23 missiles in a single day.

Most were cruise and ballistic missiles, but the most closed country in the world also tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in March for the first time in five years, before repeating the test in November, still in direction of Japan, an ally of the United States.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2022-12-31

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