North Korea has confirmed the Thursday April 13 launch of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that uses solid fuelwith the objective of achieve the “deterrence of nuclear war”.
In a statement, the Asian country explained that the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un personally supervised the launch of the missilemodel ‘Hwasongpo-18’, with the objective of “confirming the performance of high-power solid fuel multistage engines (…) and evaluating the military effectiveness of this new strategic weapon.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff South Korea confirmed that the missilelaunched from near Pyongyang at 0723 (local time), flew about 1,000 kilometers before falling into the Sea of Japan.
North Korea has also claimed that the launch did not pose any danger to the security of neighboring countriesafter the maneuver caused Japan to issue an evacuation alert for the citizens of the island of Hokkaido, in the north of the archipelago, due to the danger that the missile would fly over its airspace.
This is the Seventh time Tokyo issues nationwide instant alertsthe last time was on October 4, 2022, when a ballistic missile passed over Aomori Prefecture and it is believed that it fell into the Pacific Ocean, outside the Japanese EEZ, with a flight range of about 5,000 kilometers, the longest among North Korean ballistic missiles.
The launch of the missile, which has been condemned by Japan, South Korea and the United States, comes days after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, met with senior officials of the Armed Forces of the country to stress the “need” for war deterrence to be “more offensive.”