Pyongyang confirms test of missile capable of carrying super-large warhead

North Korea has tested a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying a super-large warhead, its state news agency reported Tuesday, with analysts saying it could be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said Pyongyang fired a Hwasong-11DA-4.5 missile on Monday capable of carrying a super-large warhead weighing 4.5 tons.

"The test-fire was conducted by equipping the missile with a simulated super-large warhead to verify the flight characteristics and information and the accuracy of hitting the target at a maximum range of 500 kilometers and a minimum range of 90 kilometers," the agency said.

Pyongyang conducts new test

Pyongyang is expected to conduct another test this month "to verify the flight characteristics, accuracy of hitting the target and the explosion force of the super-large warhead at an average range of 250 kilometers," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.

But the South Korean military expressed skepticism after it said North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, one of which failed at the start and likely exploded in flight over North Korea.

“It is very rare for test launches to be conducted inside the country, and the claim that they succeeded in such a launch is probably a lie,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung-joon told reporters Tuesday.

The launches come after North Korea on Sunday denounced the latest joint military drills between South Korea, Japan and the United States, calling them “the Asian version of NATO” and warning of “serious consequences.”

The North’s leader pledged at a party congress in 2021 to develop a range of advanced weapons, including a super-large warhead, a military spy satellite and solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Nuclear-tipped missiles

While North Korea's official KCNA news agency said the missile tested had a "super-large warhead," it did not mention the word "nuclear," Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, told AFP.

"But since it can carry a nuclear warhead, it can be considered a nuclear weapon," he told AFP.

Ties between the two Koreas have plunged to their lowest point in years, with diplomacy long deadlocked and Pyongyang stepping up weapons tests and launching balloons laden with waste into the South in what it says is a response to anti-regime propaganda balloons sent by South Korean activists into its territory.

The South's military said Tuesday it had resumed live-fire drills near the border with the North.

He said he fired about 140 rounds with K9 and K105A1 howitzers at firing ranges less than five kilometers (three miles) from the demarcation line that runs through the middle of the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.

The South Korean Navy also resumed live-fire drills on islands near the western border between the two Koreas last week, the first such exercises since a 2018 military agreement to ease tensions with the North was fully suspended this month.