Seoul, South Korea – North Korea test-fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, but the results were not successful for either of the weapons, South Korean Defense Ministry said. The nation has previously been testing the same kind of weapon just a few weeks ago, but the outcomes have not been so different that the last one.
The first launch was about 7 a.m. local time, near the east coast city of Wonsan. The missile launched appeared to be a Musudan, which has a range of more than 1,800 miles, but it crashed moments after it was fired, as reported by Reuters.
About a half an hour later, another attempt took place at the same spot with a similar intermediate range missile, however, this was also a failure, according to South Korean officials in a statement. The reason for the unsuccessful attempts is yet unknown.
The latest failures with the country’s missiles were added to others negative tests for the Musudan, one of the most powerful missiles of the nation, that now account for three in a row, as reported by the New York Times.
North Korea has an important congress due to be held on May 6, that with the negative outcomes from the tests, could put the ruling of Kim Jong-un as an embarrassment in front of the most important reunion of his party within the last decade.
“They are in a rush to show anything that is successful, to meet the schedule of a political event, the party congress,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum and a policy adviser to the South Korean navy. “They need to succeed but they keep failing. They did not have enough time to fix or technically modify the system, but just shot them because they were in a hurry.”
An eminent fifth nuclear test
President Park Geun-Hye of South Korea warned on Thursday that another nuclear test by North Korea may be imminent. A test like that would trigger more sanctions to the nation and according to Geun-Hye, this would leave the North with “no future,” she added.
North Korea has repeatedly threatened with some kind of strike against the United States in recent months, however, they have never flight-tested a long-range missile and even failed with some intermediate-range weapons. But analysts have warned that from this failures the nation could learn its weakness and fix the design problems in the arsenal.
Source: The New York Times