Tested North Korean projectiles may have included ballistic missile

This May 4 file photo from North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows a test of its military's "new tactical guided weapon." Experts say it appears to be a modified version of a Russian Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM). KCNA-Yonhap

By Jung Da-min

While the government has remained cautious to confirm whether a missile was fired in North Korea's launch of multiple projectiles last week, experts have widely agreed that it was the North's first missile launch since November 2017.

Multiple analyses based on the photos of projectiles released by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) show North Korea launched what appears to be a "new missile" that bears outward similarities to a Russian Iskander short range ballistic missile (SRBM) which has a range of about 280 kilometers when carrying a 450-500 kilogram warhead.

"Photographs of the missile look remarkably like those of a Russian-produced Iskander, suggesting that North Korea imported the missile either directly from Moscow, or through a third party," said a report released Wednesday by 38 North, a North Korea monitoring website run by the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center, noting that Moscow is permitted to export the Iskander-E, one version of the Iskander missile specifically designed and produced for export.

"It would not be too surprising for [North Korea's] engineers to develop a smaller, shorter-range missile resembling the Iskander."

Katsuhisa Furukawa, a former member of the United Nations Panel of Experts, also said that it is highly likely that the North's weapons test involved a ballistic missile, according to Japan's Asahi Shimbun report, Wednesday.

Furukawa said the controversial weapon's external appearance is very similar to that of a modified version of the Iskander and the white smoke and intense light at the time of launch are characteristics of the solid fuel used for the Russian SRBM.

U.S. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said during a Congressional hearing, Wednesday (local time), that North Korea last week launched "rockets and missiles," the first time the Pentagon has detailed what they believe Pyongyang was testing.

"Chairman Dunford called me up and said North Korea was now shooting rockets and missiles," Shanahan said, referring to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford.

The defense ministry during a press briefing Thursday said that it believed Shanahan was referring to the initial report from May 4, when Seoul also said North Korea tested a single "short-range missile." The ministry later said that the DPRK had instead launched "multiple short-range projectiles."

It has yet to confirm if it was a missile.

Meanwhile, the North's KCNA Thursday night published two articles, arguing the (North's) Korean People's Army (KPA)'s test-launch of projectiles and a "new tactical guided weapon" on May 4 was a regular and self-defensive military drill, which should not be branded as provocative.

"Any country carries on military drills for national defense and this kind of very normal drill is obviously different from the war exercises waged by some countries against other sovereign states," said a KCNA report citing a spokesman of its foreign ministry.

Another KCNA article citing a spokesman of the delegation of the North Korean side to the North-South general-level military talks criticized the South Korean military for saying the North's drill is contrary to the purpose of the military agreement reached last year.

It criticized recent combined air drills by South Korea and the U.S., referring to a two-week long annual springtime exercise, which used to be called Max Thunder. This year, South Korea and the U.S. replaced Max Thunder with a smaller-scale exercise but the North has called it "an outright challenge" to the April 27 Panmunjeom Declaration and September Pyongyang Joint Declaration reached between the leaders of the two Koreas last year.

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