14 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
North Korea has confirmed the launch on Thursday, April 13, of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that uses solid fuel, with the aim of achieving 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 missile, model ‘Hwasongpo-18’, with the aim of “confirming the performance of multistage solid fuel engines high power (…) and evaluate the military effectiveness of this new strategic weapon”.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the missile, launched from near Pyongyang at 07:23 a.m. local time, flew about 1,000 kilometers before hitting the Sea of Japan.
North Korea has also ensured that the launch did not pose any danger to the security of neighboring countries, after the maneuver caused Japan to issue an evacuation alert for the citizens of the island of Hokkaido, in the north of the archipelago, for danger of the missile flying over their airspace.
This is the seventh time Tokyo has issued nationwide instant alerts, the last time being on October 4, 2022, when a ballistic missile passed over Aomori Prefecture and is believed to have landed in 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 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with senior officials of the country’s Armed Forces to stress the “necessity” that war deterrence was “more offensive.”
