北 "어제 초대형 방사포 시험사격"…'성공' 발표는 없어

North Korean media are touting the short-range missiles fired on Tuesday, but they have stopped short this time of calling them a success.
Kim Ji-yeon tells us why.
North Korea's state media reported Wednesday... that the regime's test launch the day before was of a "super-large multiple rocket launcher," and that it was supervised by its leader Kim Jong-un.
Unlike the last time it test-fired such projectiles and made an announcement, state media did not call the launches a "success,"... raising the possibility that some of the projectiles may have failed to strike their targets.
A South Korean military source confirmed that one of the projectiles hit an uninhabited island in the East Sea, referred to in Korean as a rock target,... but the other one struck not far away on the North Korean mainland... and this might be one reason it didn't call the launches a "success."
But the source also said it's premature to call them a complete failure because both of the projectiles flew more than 2-hundred kilometers... right over North Korea's own territory,... intended to show the regime's confidence in its weapons development.
The North Korean leader reportedly said the launches helped verify the technical parameters of their new launch system and now they only need to test its multiple-launch capability... signaling that it may fire more projectiles in the future.
The same source denied claims the regime may have fired three and not two projectiles on Tuesday... following the North's release of photos from the launch site that shows a transporter erector launcher and four launch tubes.
Three of them were shown to have been uncovered after the launch, while the remaining tube was blocked... raising speculations that one of the launches could have been a misfire... gone undetected by the South Korean military.
Compared to previous pictures of its launches released by Pyeongyang, pictures of Tuesday's launches hitting a target were not shown this time.
As for criticism that South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff have not revealed more about Tuesday's launches,... including the projectiles' flight altitude, the Joint Chiefs responded that it's due to concerns about exposing the South Korean military's intel gathering.
They also denied local media reports speculating that it's because of a communication failure between South Korean and U.S. intelligence... or due to Seoul's refusal to renew GSOMIA, a military intel sharing pact with Japan.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.