North Korea said Friday it had conducted a rare strategic cruise missile drill as the United States announced it had held a tabletop military exercise with South Korea focusing on the possibility of nuclear weapons use by Pyongyang.
The missile drill, which the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said took place early Thursday, saw four Hwasal-2 strategic cruise missiles “precisely hit” a target in the Sea of Japan “after traveling the 2,000-km-long elliptical and eight-shaped flight orbits” for about 170 minutes.
Such a distance would put all of Japan within striking distance.