North Korea fires ICBM while US and Seoul denounce Russia’s deployment

DISTRACT ATTENTION?

North Korea’s missile launch “appears to have been carried out to divert attention from international criticism of the troop deployment,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kiev and alleged that Pyongyang has deployed soldiers en masse in the wake of Kim Jong Un’s signing of a mutual defense treaty with the Russian president Vladimir Putin in June.

The troop deployment poses a “significant security threat”, Seoul said, while US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday called on the North to withdraw its troops.

South Korea’s military had warned lawmakers the day before that preparations were “nearly complete for a long-range ICBM-class missile” and that a launch could be aimed at testing the North’s atmospheric reentry technology.

Seoul has warned that Russia may provide new technology or expertise to Pyongyang in exchange for weapons and troops to help them in the fight against Ukraine.

It is possible that “Russia has actually provided new technology to reenter the atmosphere,” Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP.

But it is more likely that Thursday’s test was an attempt to distract from the troop deployment and “grab the world’s attention ahead of the US presidential election,” Ahn added.

Seoul, a major arms exporter, has said it is examining whether to send weapons directly to Ukraine in response, something it has previously opposed due to a long-standing domestic policy that prevents the country from sending weapons into active conflicts.

North Korea has denied sending troops to Russia, but last week its vice foreign minister said in the first comment in state media that if such a deployment were to take place, it would be in accordance with international law.

Pyongyang has been barred from tests using ballistic technology by multiple rounds of U.N. sanctions, but leader Kim has stepped up launches this year, with experts warning he could test weapons before delivering them to Russia.