North Korea claims one other take a look at of underwater nuclear drone

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Saturday claimed it examined this week a second identified kind of nuclear-capable underwater assault drone designed to destroy naval vessels and ports, including to a flurry of weapons demonstrations this 12 months which have heightened tensions with rivals.

The report of the four-day take a look at got here a day after the nuclear envoys of the United States, South Korea and Japan met in Seoul to debate the rising North Korean nuclear menace and known as for stronger worldwide efforts to crack down on illicit North Korean actions funding its weapons program.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency mentioned the drone, named “Haeil-2” after a Korean phrase that means tsunamis or tidal waves, traveled underwater for greater than 71 hours earlier than efficiently detonating a mock warhead in waters close to the jap port metropolis of Tanchon on Friday. KCNA mentioned the take a look at proved that the weapon might strike targets 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away with “fatal attack ability.”

North Korean state media final month reported two exams of one other drone, named “Haeil-1,” and described the weapon as able to setting off a “radioactive tsunami” to destroy enemy vessels and ports.

Analysts, nonetheless, are skeptical whether or not such a tool would add a significant new menace to North Korea’s rising nuclear arsenal constructed round missiles and whether or not it’s cheap for the North to pursue such capabilities contemplating its still-limited provides of nuclear bomb gasoline. South Korea’s navy has mentioned it believes North Korean claims about Haeil-1 had been possible “exaggerated or fabricated.”

On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden’s particular consultant for North Korea, Sung Kim, met along with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Seoul the place they issued a joint assertion calling for stronger worldwide assist to stem North Korean efforts to evade U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The envoys expressed explicit concern about North Korea’s cybercrimes and illicit labor exports, which Seoul says might probably develop because it additional reopens its borders as COVID-19 fears ease.