North Korea fires anti-aircraft missile in latest test

Seoul - UN Security Council fails to issue statement on recent flurry of weapons tests by the nuclear-armed nations

North Korea has successfully fired a new anti-aircraft missile, state media said Friday as the UN Security Council failed to issue a statement after an emergency meeting on the recent flurry of weapons tests by the nuclear-armed nation.

The anti-aircraft missile had a “remarkable combat performance” and included twin rudder controls and other new technologies, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

A picture in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed the missile ascending at an angle into the sky from a launch vehicle on Thursday.

It is the latest in a series of tension-raising steps by Pyongyang, which had until recently been biding its time since the change in US administrations in January.

In September, it launched what it said was a long-range cruise missile, and earlier this week tested what it described as a hypersonic gliding vehicle, which South Korea’s military said appeared to be in the early stages of development.

And on Wednesday, the North’s leader Kim Jong Un decried Washington’s repeated offers of talks without preconditions as a “petty trick”, accusing the Biden administration of continuing the “hostile policy” of its predecessors.

South Korea’s defence ministry told AFP it was unable to immediately confirm the latest launch.

Anti-aircraft missiles are much smaller than the ballistic missiles the North is banned from developing under United Nations Security Council resolutions, and harder to detect from afar.

Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its weapons programmes, which have made rapid progress under Kim, including missiles capable of reaching the whole of the US mainland and by far its most powerful nuclear test to date.

The latest tests have sparked international condemnation, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying they created “greater prospects for instability and insecurity”.

Friday’s UN Security Council meeting on North Korea, called by the United States, Britain and France, was originally due to take place on Thursday.

But it was delayed by Russia and China, who asked for more time to study the situation, a diplomatic source said.

The meeting ended up lasting just over an hour. France wanted the council to issue a public statement afterward expressing “concern” over North Korea’s behavior but again China and Russia said they needed more time, a diplomat from a council member said.

Most of the council members wanted to issue a statement but Russia and China were opposed, one diplomat said.

During the meeting China complained that a new alliance between Britain, Australia and the United States, under which Washington will provide nuclear submarine technology to Canberra, is a threat to the region, diplomats said. The US and British delegations said this issue had nothing to do with North Korea, diplomats added.

Beijing is Pyongyang’s key ally and in normal times its biggest provider of trade and aid, although the North has since early last year been under a self-imposed blockade after it shut its borders to defend itself against the coronavirus pandemic.