N. Korea displays new submarine-launched ballistic missile during parade

SEOUL, Jan. 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to have showcased a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) during a recent military parade held in Pyongyang, experts said Friday.

The parade took place on Thursday night at Kim Il-sung Square after Pyongyang wrapped up its eight-day congress of the ruling Workers' Party on Tuesday, at which leader Kim Jong-un pledged to bolster its nuclear arsenal.

According to photos released by the North's Korean Central Korean News Agency (KCNA), the North rolled out SLBMs, which it presumably labeled as the Pukguksong-5ㅅ, along with various solid-fuel ballistic missiles and other weaponry.

State media called the SLBM "the world's most powerful weapon."

Ankit Panda, a researcher and nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment on International Peace, tweeted that "there's a new SLBM."

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) simply said it is analyzing military items displayed during the parade.

During the military parade held in October last year, North Korea unveiled a new SLBM, dubbed the Pukguksong-4ㅅ.

North Korea was known to have three types of Pukguksong missiles, and Pukguksong-2 is a ground-based one, not an SLBM.

As the upgraded version of the Pukguksong-1, the Pukguksong-3 SLBM is believed to have a flight range of 2,000 kilometers or longer, and the regime last carried out a flight test of the weapon in October 2019.

graceoh@yna.co.kr
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