North Korea's longest-range missile since 2017

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  • The projectile fell 800 kilometers beyond the country, in the Sea of ​​Japan, after rising up to 2,000 kilometers

Half a dozen missile launches had chained North Korea in January without the world taking its eyes off Ukraineso this morning he claimed the spotlights with a projectile from the top shelf of his inventory. The measure fulfills its purpose: it ensures the headlines that speak of the largest missile in three years but without crossing what the world understands as red lines.

It consists of a medium-range missile, according to calculations by South Korea and Japan. The projectile was ejected at dawn and fell 800 kilometers further into the Sea of ​​Japan, after having lifted up to 2,000 kilometers. With the vertical trajectory I was looking for Pyongyang test the autonomy of flight without entering the air zone of the neighbors. Shot at a horizontal angle could hit Guam, an island in the Pacific which houses an American base. The closest precedent is the launch of the Hwansong-12 missile in those roaring days of 2017 when Pyongyang and Washington exchanged threats of imminent destruction.

Sunday’s launch marks a stride forward after the two hypersonic missiles and four short-range cruise missiles it had added this month. It is far, however, from the long-distance missiles with the presumed capacity to reach US soil and the nuclear tests that irremediably decompose the world. Kim Jong-un self-imposed a moratorium on them as a gesture of goodwill on the eve of the diplomatic marathon that brought him two summits and a brief meeting on the Korean border with Donald Trump. Pyongyang has hinted in recent months that it is ending the moratorium due to the stagnation of the process, but its effective rupture would return the conflict to a point of difficult return and complicate the return to negotiations.

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In the urgent folder of the USA

The recent frenzy is interpreted as a request to the US president, Joe Bidento put North Korea in the urgent matters folder. Biden has been willing to resume Trump’s diplomatic path, but his repeated calls have been ignored by Pyongyang, which has clarified that negotiations are impossible with the current “hostile US policy.” Washington has not lifted a single one of the sanctions that are strangling the North Korean economy and days ago it promoted the approval of a new package of punishments in the UN. The missile launches also seek to influence politics in South Korea, which is due to hold presidential elections in March. Moon Jae-in, the main advocate of rapprochement between the two Koreas, he will leave the Blue House and in Pyongyang the return of the hard line is feared.

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