North Korea Says Tested New Cruise Missile In Latest Example Of Its Expanding Capabilities

North Korea said Thursday it conducted its first flight test of a new cruise missile, as it expands its military capabilities in the face of deepening tensions with the United States and neighbours.

The report in state media came a day after South Korea's military said it detected the North firing several cruise missiles into waters off its western coast. The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff did not provide more specific assessments, including the number of missiles fired or their flight characteristics. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the Pulhwasal-3-31 missile is still in its development phase and that the launch did not pose a threat to neighbours. It described the missile as “strategic,” implying an intent to arm them with nuclear weapons.

The cruise missile launches were North Korea's second known launch event of the year, following a Jan. 14 test-firing of the country's first solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile, which reflected its efforts to advance its lineup of weapons targeting US military bases in Japan and Guam. North Korea's cruise missiles are among its growing arsenal of weapons aimed at overwhelming missile defenses in South Korea and Japan. They supplement the country's huge lineup of ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the US mainland.

While North Korean cruise missile activities aren't directly banned under UN sanctions, experts say those weapons potentially pose a serious threat to South Korea and Japan. They are designed to be harder to detect by radar, and North Korea claims they are nuclear-capable and their range is up to 2,000 kilometers, a distance that would include US military bases in Japan. Since 2021, North Korea has conducted at least 10 rounds of tests of what it described as long-range cruise missiles fired from both land and sea.

Tensions in the region have increased in recent months as Kim continues to accelerate his weapons development and make provocative threats of nuclear conflict with the United States and its Asian allies. In response, the United States, South Korea and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises, which Kim condemns as invasion rehearsals and use as a pretext to further ramp up his military demonstrations.

There are concerns that Kim could dial up pressure in an election year in the United States and South Korea. South Korean experts and officials say Kim's weapons drive has put further strain on a broken economy, decimated by decades of mismanagement and US-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions.

In a separate report, KCNA said Kim during a two-day ruling party meeting held through Wednesday criticized officials for failures in sufficiently providing “basic living necessities including condiments, foodstuff and consumption goods” to people living in the countryside and less developed cities and towns. Kim had called the meeting to discuss a 10-year project he announced last week to promote a more balanced regional development, which includes a goal of building modern factories in every county nationwide.

Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press this week suggest North Korea has torn down a huge arch in its capital that symbolized reconciliation with South Korea, a week after Kim dismissed decades of hopes for peaceful reunification with the war-divided peninsula's south. Kim last week described the Pyongyang monument as an “eyesore” and called for its removal while declaring that the North was abandoning long-standing goals of a peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of the North's constitution to define the South as its most hostile foreign adversary. He accused South Korea of acting as “top-class stooges” of the Americans and repeated a threat that he would use his nukes to annihilate the South if provoked.

Analysts say North Korea could be aiming to diminish South Korea's voice in the regional nuclear standoff and eventually force direct dealings with Washington as it looks to cement its nuclear status.