North Korea marked its newly established Missile Industry Day on Saturday with silence in state-run media, as leader Kim Jong Un has remained out of the public spotlight for nearly a month.
The new holiday to commemorate the Nov. 18 launch last year of its massive Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile was announced earlier this month and Pyongyang had been expected to fete the occasion with a missile test or celebration.
The Hwasong-17 is one of the North’s most powerful weapons, with Japan’s Defense Ministry estimating it could deliver a nuclear bomb — and potentially multiple warheads — more than 15,000 kilometers, putting all of the U.S. within striking distance.
But, while the front page of Sunday’s state-run Rodong Sinmun daily included an article calling for the top economic targets for this year to be achieved, there were no stories about Missile Industry Day anywhere in the paper, NHK reported.
The lack of holiday coverage in state media, as well as Kim’s absence — one of his longest this year — was conspicuous, but the details remain unclear.
Kim’s whereabouts were last covered in state-run media on Oct. 20, when he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Pyongyang. If the North Korean leader remains out of the public spotlight through next Saturday, it would be his second-longest absence since he took power in 2011.
Kim has periodically disappeared from public view, including for 40 days in 2014, amid reports of health issues, until he re-emerged walking with a cane. Rumors and media reports in 2020 also claimed he had died or was in a vegetative state following a botched heart operation.
Early this year, though, he was also not seen in state media for 36 days, until he appeared at a meeting of top officials, where he ordered the country’s military to perfect its “preparedness for war.”
On Wednesday, North Korea said it had successfully tested new solid-fuel engines for intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the nuclear-armed country’s latest development of a weapon capable of stealthily striking Japan.
The North is expected to test the engines in new missiles sometime in the next year.
Solid-fuel missiles offer significant advantages for North Korea over the liquid-fueled weapons that make up the bulk of Pyongyang’s arsenal. They are easier to deploy and can be fired off quicker, giving the United States and its allies less time for satellites to spot and take them out.
North Korea has doubled down on the development of powerful new weapons capable of evading U.S., South Korean and Japanese missile defenses — despite crushing United Nations and unilateral sanctions over its missile and nuclear programs.
It had also pledged to make a third try at launching a military spy satellite in October, but that attempt never materialized.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told South Korean broadcaster KBS on Sunday that the North was likely to conduct such a launch within the next week or at least before the end of the month, noting that Pyongyang had appeared to resolve lingering issues with Russian support.
Japan has kept in place a shootdown order for any rocket or debris that threatens its territory, and the government has said a fresh satellite launch could come at any time.
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