NIS chief: ‘N.K. fired multiple-rocket launcher incorporating ballistic missiles’

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reportedly called the super-large multiple-rocket launcher that North Korea fired on Thursday multiple-rocket launcher incorporating ballistic missiles. Watchers say that the spy agency has effectively admitted that the projectiles the North claims to have been fired with a super-large multiple-rocket launcher are incorporating ballistic missile technology, which is banned under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2397 against Pyongyang.

At a full-member meeting of the parliamentary Intelligence Committee on Friday when NIS chief Seo Hoon was asked by a committee member, “What the North fired on Thursday are apparently ballistic missiles, and why the South Korean government calls the projectiles multiple-rocket launcher shots (just as Pyongyang claims)?” he reportedly said that it was so because the North announced as such. In reality, it was a multiple-rocket launcher incorporating ballistic missiles.” A committee member told The Dong-A Ilbo, “Since the North will be subject to international sanctions due to violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions if it fires a ballistic missile, the South Korean government is accepting to a certain degree exactly the way Pyongyang claims, even though the projectiles are another kind of ballistic missiles.”

Reporting on Thursday’s firing of super-large multiple-rocket launcher, the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported Friday, “National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Un expressed full satisfaction about the outcome of the test firings.” The agency thus used the expression‎ “full satisfaction” this time after using‎ “satisfaction” when Pyongyang fired the super-large multiple-rocket launcher on October 31.


Dong-Joo Cho djc@donga.com