North Korean media again omits missile launch

Seoul, May 8 (EFE).- North Korea’s state media remained silent Sunday about the launch of a missile the day before, as happened this week after the regime fired a ballistic missile earlier in the week that the country did not disclose.

Neither the KCNA news agency, nor the Rodong newspaper nor KCTV television mentioned Saturday’s test, when the North Korean army launched a submarine ballistic missile that traveled about 600 kilometers and reached a maximum height of 60 kilometers.

In recent years it has been common for North Korean media to report the launches made a day earlier first thing in the morning, along with photo evidence.

However, they kept silent earlier this week about the ballistic missile fired Wednesday from Pyongyang airport.

This gives rise to some analysts to think the regime could have fired an intercontinental ballistic missile Wednesday whose flight was unsuccessful, as occurred with another ICBM in March that exploded in mid-flight and about which the North Korean media they never spoke.

The silence that the regime’s press kept about the missile launched Saturday, however, adds more uncertainty to the matter.

Saturday’s was the 15th launch of North Korean projectiles since the beginning of 2022, a record number motivated by the weapons modernization program approved last year by North Korea. The country remains closed to world due to the pandemic and unwillingless to resume dialogue with the United States

Today’s test also comes three days before the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol takes office as president in South Korea. The incumbent leader has promised a less tolerant position with the northern neighbor.

Yoon is also scheduled to meet with US President Joe Biden in Seoul on May 21, a visit in which the North Korean weapons program will take center stage, even more so at a time when Pyongyang seems ready to carry out its first nuclear test since 2017, as indicated by satellites. EFE

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