SEOUL: North Korea confirmed on Monday it test-launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US territory of Guam, the Norths most significant weapon launch in years, as Washington plans steps to show its commitment to its Asian allies.

Sundays launch could be a prelude to bigger provocations by North Korea such as nuclear and long-range missile tests that pose a direct threat to the US mainland, as the North tries to further pressure the Biden administration to win sanction relief or international recognition as a legitimate nuclear state.

The official Korean Central News Agency said the purpose of the test was verifying the overall accuracy of the Hwasong-12 missile that is being deployed in its military.

North Korea said the missile was launched toward waters off its east coast on a high angle to prevent flying over other countries. It gave no further details.

According to South Korean and Japanese assessments, the missile flew about 800 kilometres and reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometres before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

The reported flight details make it the most powerful missile North Korea has tested since 2017, when the country launched Hwasong-12 and longer-range missiles in a torrid run of weapons firings to acquire an ability to launch nuclear strikes on US military bases in Northeast Asia and the Pacific and even the American homeland.

KCNA published two sets of combination photos one purporting to show the missile rising from a launcher and soaring into space and the other showing North Korea and nearby areas that it said were photographed from space by a camera installed at the missiles warhead.

Lee Choon Geun, a missile expert and honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, said he thinks the photos were taken from space especially when the missile was soaring to its apogee, though he cannot independently prove there was no adjustment on the images. While its rare to place a camera on a weapon, Lee said North Korea likely wanted to demonstrate its technological advancement to both foreign and domestic audiences.

The Hwasong-12 missile is a nuclear-capable ground-to-ground weapon with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres when it's fired on a standard trajectory. It's a distance sufficient to reach Guam, home to US military bases that in past times of tensions sent advanced warplanes to the Korean Peninsula in shows of force.

In August 2017, at the height of animosities with the then-Trump administration, North Korea threatened to make an enveloping fire near Guam with Hwasong-12 missiles.

In 2017, North Korea also test-fired intercontinental ballistic missiles called Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 that experts say demonstrated their potential capacity to reach the mainland US. Some analysts say North Korea still needs to conduct additional ICBM test-flights to prove it has overcome the last remaining technological hurdles, such as protecting a warhead from the extreme heat and pressure of reentering the Earths atmosphere.

In recent months, North Korea has launched a variety of weapons systems and threatened to lift a four-year moratorium on more serious weapons tests such as nuclear explosions and ICBM launches. Sundays launch was the Norths seventh round of missile launches in January alone, and other weapons tested recently include a developmental hypersonic missile and a submarine-launched missile.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2022