A North Korean missile explodes in the sky—and a mystery emerges
livemint.comSEOUL : North Korea said it had successfully tested technology for raining down multiple nuclear warheads at once—a top weapons goal for Kim Jong Un and an increased threat to the U.S. and its allies. But, in an unusually pointed rebuke, South Korea denounced the self-declared achievement as a bluff.
The contradictory assessments illustrate high stakes for both Koreas: Seoul is trying to keep close tabs on its neighbor’s missile program as Pyongyang develops an increasingly capable nuclear threat. North Korea covets multi-warhead weapons because they are harder to defend against. Relations between the neighboring countries have worsened in recent years, growing more militaristic and confrontational.
Kim abandoned hopes of peaceful reunification in January and signed a new defense pact with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin just last week. South Korea, under conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, has tightened its military partnership with the U.S. and Japan, including new three-way drills that began Thursday.
The truth from Wednesday’s fiery test isn’t so readily apparent, weapons experts said. Both Koreas conceded a missile roared into the sky and then left a trail of smoke behind before crashing into the water. In North Korea’s state-media account, three separate warheads fired from an intermediate-range missile hit their unspecified targets.
State media released photos of smoke trails it claims show warhead separation. But the images make it difficult to confirm the missile’s flight characteristics, and North Korea has fabricated details of its weapons achievements before, the experts say. Among the top weapons priorities that Kim detailed in a policy speech in 2021, one was possessing the ability to launch several
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