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North Korea fires intercontinental ballistic missile

People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul Thursday. — AFP
People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul Thursday. — AFP
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SEOUL: North Korea said on Thursday it had test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles to boost its nuclear deterrent, Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to Russia.


Seoul had warned a day earlier that the nuclear-armed North was preparing to test-fire another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or even conduct a nuclear test ahead of next week's US elections.


The launch came just hours after US and South Korean defence chiefs called on Pyongyang to withdraw its troops from Russia, warning that North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms were being deployed for possible action against Ukraine.


"The initial judgement so far is that (Pyongyang) may have test-fired a new solid-propelled long-range ballistic missile," Seoul's military said, adding the missile had flown around 1,000 km after being fired on a lofted trajectory — meaning up, not out.


Developing advanced solid-fuel missiles — which are quicker to launch and harder to detect and destroy in advance — has long been a goal for Kim.


North Korea defended the sanctions-busting launch, calling it "an appropriate military action that fully meets the purpose of informing the rivals... of our counteraction will," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Kim as saying.


The test "updated the recent records of the strategic missile capability," of North Korea, it said, with Kim vowing his country "will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces".


Tokyo said that the "ICBM-class" missile had flown for longer than any other previously tested by the North, being airborne for about 86 minutes and hitting altitudes of 7,000 kilometres.


North Korea's missile launch "seems to have been carried out to divert attention from international criticism of its troop deployment," Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.


Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv and alleged that Pyongyang has moved to deploy soldiers en mass in the wake of Kim Jong Un's signing of a mutual defence deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June. — AFP


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