SEOUL: A North Korean military think tank on Monday dismissed South Korea’s recently tested submarine-launched ballistic missile as clumsy and rudimentary but warned its development would rekindle cross-border tension.
Both South and North Korea, which have been developing increasingly sophisticated weapons amid stalled efforts to ease tension on the peninsula, tested ballistic missiles on Wednesday.
Jang Chang Ha, chief of the Academy of the National Defense Science, a North Korean state-run weapons development and procurement center, said in a commentary on the official KCNA news agency that media photographs of the latest South Korean missile showed a “sloppy” weapon that did not even have the shape of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
The missile seemed to be a version of the South’s Hyunmoo surface-to-surface ballistic missiles with the warhead part an imitation of India’s K-15 SLBM, Jang said.
The photographs of the test indicated that South Korea had yet to achieve key technologies for the underwater launch including complicated fluid flow analysis, he said.
“In a word, it should be called some clumsy work,” Jang said. “If it’s indeed an SLBM, it would only be in its rudimentary, infant stage.”
South Korea’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jang said the weapon had not reached a phase where it had strategic and tactical value and would thus pose a threat to the North but questioned the intent of the South’s ongoing missile development.
“The South’s enthusiastic efforts to improve submarine weapons systems clearly presage intensified military tension on the Korean peninsula,” Jang said. “And at the same time, it awakens us again and makes us sure of what we ought to do.”
Jang’s comments came days after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, derided the South for criticizing the North for what she said were “routine defensive measures” while developing its own missiles.
North Korea has been steadily developing its weapons systems, raising the stakes for talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals in return for US sanctions relief.
The negotiations, initiated between Kim Jong Un and former US President Donald Trump in 2018, have stalled since 2019.
Pyongyang derides Seoul’s submarine-launched missile as clumsy, rudimentary
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Pyongyang derides Seoul’s submarine-launched missile as clumsy, rudimentary
- Both Korean neighbors developing increasingly sophisticated weapons amid stalled efforts to ease tension on the peninsula
US designates Afghanistan as ‘state sponsor of wrongful detention’
- “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions,” Rubio says
WASHINGTON, United States: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday he has designated Afghanistan as a “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” demanding Taliban authorities release two Americans and commit to ending its “hostage diplomacy.”
The move comes just over a week after Iran became the first country added to Washington’s new “wrongful detention” blacklist.
President Donald Trump in September signed an executive order that created the blacklist, similar to designations by the United States on terrorism.
“The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions,” Rubio said in a statement.
He said it was “not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals.”
“The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever,” he added.
Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman, previously served as Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation.
He was arrested in August 2022 in Kabul along with dozens of other employees of his telecommunications company, according to US authorities.
The State Department has issued a reward of $5 million for information leading to Habibi’s return.
Coyle is an academic from Colorado who worked for two decades in Afghanistan before being detained in January 2025, according to the James Foley Foundation.
