By Alex Jensen
SEOUL (AA) – North Korea insisted Sunday that it had successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) hours after military officials from the South claimed it had failed with such an attempted launch in waters east of the peninsula.
The North’s pursuit of SLBM technology has raised equal measures of skepticism and alarm since the country hailed its first launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine last May.
Outside experts view Pyongyang’s celebrations as premature but also a sign of things to come.
This time, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, North Korea’s SLBM managed to fly for around 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on Saturday evening, well short of expectations for a successful test.
But Pyongyang’s state-run North Korean Central News Agency issued a counter-claim by announcing that leader Kim Jong-un had overseen a flawless launch incorporating solid fuel and other technological breakthroughs that the North claims threaten Seoul and Washington.
Kim encouraged ongoing efforts to allow North Korea to “mount nuclear attacks on the United States imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors any time.”
The U.S. and South Korea fought on the same side during the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.
SLBMs are of particular concern because unlike the North’s land-based threat, they are more likely to go undetected until it is too late.
North Korea has intensified its nuclear development this year and was hit with strengthened sanctions last month for its fourth ever nuclear test and subsequent rocket launch.
Seoul also revealed earlier this month that the North had botched a medium-range ballistic missile test involving a relatively new weapon.
Indicating that North Korea is still prepared to defy United Nations Security Council resolutions, its perceived failures may also pressure Pyongyang to go further and conduct a fifth nuclear test before a much-anticipated political congress next month.
Meanwhile, South Korean military sources noted Sunday that the North had deployed around 300 multiple launch rocket systems capable of hitting Seoul along the inter-Korean border.
Local news agency Yonhap reported that the rockets have twice the range of those used in the fatal shelling of a South Korean border island in 2010.
