Kim Dongyeop, professor of the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University spoke to Sputnik Korea about North Korea’s recent missile launch and whether it was a signal to Washington and Beijing.

Axar.az reports that “The launch which was carried out on April 5 could have been carried out using Pukykson-2 type missile or could have been the first experimental launch of a new type of solid-fuel missile Pukykson-3,” Dongyeop said.
According to the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea, the missile was launched from Sinpo in the province of North Pyongan using a stationary launcher at an angle of 93 degrees at a maximum altitude of 189 kilometers. It flew 66 kilometers toward the Sea of Japan.

Talking about this recent launch, the professor said that although the command of the US Navy and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea said that it was a Pukykson-2 (KN-15), such a conclusion may have been hasty.

“We cannot judge from the short range of the flight that the launch was unsuccessful without knowing exactly what kind of missile was launched,” Dongyeop said.

The expert said that this launch seemed similar to the first pilot launch aimed at testing features and gathering information at the initial stage of creating a new type of missile.

However, the professor noted that if it was a Pukykson-2, then the launch was really an unsuccessful one.

He further said that he does not exclude the possibility that the launch was an experiment because after the Pukykson-2 was launched, Pyongyang announced that it intends to switch from liquid fuel to solid fuel.