According to ABC, South Korean officials did not confirm the reports, but said they are “closely monitoring the situation”.
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The South Korean and U.S. officials said the earlier launch on Wednesday that failed was also likely a Musudan launched from North Korea’s east coast.
The BBC’s Steve Evans in Seoul says failure of the first missile illustrates the technological difficulties North Korea faces as it develops a nuclear arsenal and the means to attack distant targets. Later in the day, the JCS said the North fired another suspected Musudan, but it wasn’t immediately clear if it succeeded.
Tension in the region has been high since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed that with a satellite launch and test launches of various missiles, including one in May.
The Musudan (a.k.a. BM-25) is an IRBM produced by North Korea and believed to be based on the Russian-designed R-27 submarine-launched ballistic missile (also known by its NATO reporting name SS-N-6), to which it bears a resemblance.
“A propaganda campaign by the North” over the status of the group was a factor in the decision, the government official told Reuters, requesting anonymity because the topic is sensitive. Harsh new sanctions were put in place in response to earlier tests.
The proposal was repeated several times by the North’s military, but Seoul dismissed all the overtures as insincere “posturing” given Kim’s vow at the same congress to push ahead with the country’s nuclear weapons programme. Pyongyang says its rivals must negotiate with it as an established nuclear power, something Washington and Seoul refuse to do.
The lawyers’ group has so far failed to get permission to meet with the defectors in question to check North Korea’s recent claim that they were abducted under Seoul’s orders – the group had worked at a restaurant in China before entering the South in April. “So we certainly would urge North Korea to refrain from doing that sort of thing”, Cook said.
Since the 1990s, the South has officially welcomed around 30,000 North Koreans, who risked their lives by defying their authoritarian homeland’s regime. About 28,500 US soldiers are stationed in South Korea to deter possible aggression from North Korea.
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