SEOUL (Dispatches) - North Korea conducted tests of an upgraded long-range cruise missile and a warhead of a tactical guided missile this week, as leader Kim Jong Un visited a munitions factory producing a “major weapon system,” state media KCNA reported on Friday.
Tensions have been simmering over North Korea’s series of six weapons tests in 2022, among the largest number of missile launches it has made in a month.
An update to a long-range cruise missile system was tested on Tuesday, and another test was held to confirm the power of a conventional warhead for a surface-to-surface tactical guided missile on Thursday, KCNA said.
Earlier, South Korea’s military said Pyongyang fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles towards the East Sea, marking its sixth such launch this month.
Kim did not attend the tests, but during a visit to the munitions factory, he lauded “leaping progress in producing major weapons” to implement the ruling Workers’ Party’s decisions made at a meeting last month, a separate dispatch said.
“The factory holds a very important position and duty in modernizing the country’s armed forces and realizing the national defense development strategy,” Kim said.
Kim called for bolstering national defenses to tackle an unstable international situation at the late December party gathering.
Last week, North Korea said it may consider resuming “all temporarily suspended” activities to boost its defenses against Washington’s “military threats,” an apparent reference to a self-imposed moratorium on tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, which has been in place since 2017.
Earlier in the month, North Korea tested tactical guided missiles, two “hypersonic missiles” capable of high speed and maneuvering after lift-off, and a railway-borne missile system.
In response to Pyongyang’s new missile tests, the United States imposed new sanctions on the country earlier in the month, which Pyongyang described as an act of “provocation.” Washington also called on the United Nations Security Council to blacklist several North Korean individuals and entities.
The North has defended its latest missile tests as a legitimate right to self-defense.