SKorean military says new NKorean missile launch fails

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired a suspected powerful new Musudan mid-range missile on Wednesday from its east coast, but the launch is believed to have failed, the South Korean military said.

A statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff gave no further details on the launch from near the east coast city of Wonsan.

A U.S. official also said the launch appeared to be another failure, adding that the U.S. was assessing exactly what had happened. The official wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Four earlier attempts to fire suspected Musudan missiles ended in failure in recent months. The intermediate-range Musudan missile has raised concerns because its potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range puts U.S. military bases in Asia and the Pacific within its striking range.

In April, North Korea attempted unsuccessfully to launch three suspected Musudan missiles. All exploded in midair or crashed, according to South Korean defense officials. Earlier this month, North Korea had another missile launch failure. South Korean officials didn’t identify the type of missile launched on June 1, but South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said it was also a Musudan.

Before April’s suspected launches, North Korea had never flight-tested a Musudan missile, although one was displayed during a military parade in 2010 in Pyongyang, its capital.

The launches appear linked to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s order in March for nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The order was an apparent response to springtime U.S.-South Korean military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

Despite the repeated failures, the launch attempts show the North is pushing hard to upgrade its missile capability in defiance of U.S.-led international pressure. The North was slapped with the strongest U.N. sanctions in two decades after it conducted a fourth nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch earlier this year. Earlier Tuesday, at a Washington briefing, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said that if North Korea were to conduct another missile test, it “would be another violation of U.N. resolutions.”

“It would be another provocative action. So we certainly would urge North Korea to refrain from doing that sort of thing,” Cook said.

North Korea has recently claimed a series of key breakthroughs in its push to build a long-range nuclear missile that can strike the American mainland. But South Korean officials said the North doesn’t yet possess such a weapon.

The North has already deployed a variety of missiles that can reach most targets in South Korea and Japan, including American military bases in the two countries.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea to deter possible aggression from North Korea.