NK Creates Mid-Range Ballistic Missile Unit
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
North Korea has established an independent military division to take control of its 3,000-kilometer-range missiles, which have the capability to reach U.S. military installations in Japan and Guam, a report said Tuesday.
Citing an unidentified government source, Yonhap News Agency reported the intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) division has been created under the wing of the North Korean People's Army General Staff.
The move reflects the North's intent to produce and deploy more of its new IRBMs, the source was quoted as saying.
An official at the Ministry of National Defense said North Korea is presumed to operate a unit for IRBMs, given the North developed the 3,000-kilometer-range weapon in 2007.
"We believe North Korea's military has created an IRBM unit but we are not sure if it is a division-level unit or not," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Baek Seung-joo, a senior researcher at the state-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), said he believes the missile unit's role is to limit the reinforcements of U.S. troops in the Pacific to the Korean Peninsula in case of war.
According to the 2008 defense white paper published by the South Korean defense ministry, the North successfully deployed IRBMs in 2007 after it started developing a mid-range ballistic missile in the late 1990s.
According to missile experts here and abroad, the North Korean IRBM was developed based on the former Soviet Union-designed SS-N-6. While there appears to be some disagreement on the ranges for the SS-N-6 and the North Korean variant with a range of 3,000 to 3,600 kilometers, a missile with a 2,500-kilometer range would enable North Korea to strike U.S forces in Guam as well as Okinawa in Japan, they say.
North Korea, which is believed to have set up more than 600 short-range Scud-missiles with a range of 320 to 500 kilometers and 200 Rodong missiles with a range of 1,300 kilometers near the inter-Korean border, is pushing to develop a 6,700-kilometer-range Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could reach Alaska.
To counter North Korea's missile threat, South Korea last year deployed the 1,000-kilometer-range surface-to-surface cruise missiles.
The South Korean government has sought to develop long-range cruise missiles since 2006, when the North test-fired the Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile and subsequently conducted its first nuclear test.
Seoul's development of a long-range cruise missile doesn't violate guidelines restricting the country's missile technology.
The country restricted its missile range to 300 kilometers in a 2001 agreement with the United States, which declared at the same time it would support South Korea's membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
The MTCR is an informal and voluntary regime of more than 30 countries that seeks to limit missile proliferation by restricting exports of missiles that have a range of 300 kilometers or more, and are capable of delivering a 500-kilogram payload.
The regime, however, only applies to high-velocity, free flight ballistic missiles, excluding the slower, surface-skimming cruise weapons.