OPINION: North Korea’s missile tests: Need for constant vigilance

Seoul, Tokyo and Washington today are aiming to neutralise negative implications of North Korea's ongoing nuclear-missile weaponisation programmes on their territorial integrity. New Delhi must observe constant vigilance over the North's ICBM technology. Islamabad may acquire it from Pyongyang and use it against India.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US President Joe Biden have one thing in common today: emphasis on trilateral cooperation between their countries. In the process, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have of late been drawing closer to one another both bilaterally and trilaterally.

Reports are that on April 14, South Korea, Japan and the United States agreed at talks in Washington to hold regular missile defence and anti-submarine exercises. On April 17, South Korea and Japan resumed "two-plus-two" talks of senior diplomatic and security officials in Seoul, after a five-year halt.

The same day, South Korea, the United States and Japan staged joint naval missile defence exercises in international waters between Korea and Japan. These drills brought together South Korea's 7,600-tonne Aegis destroyer Yulgok Yi I, the US guided-missile destroyer Benfold, and Japan's Atago destroyer, equipped with Aegis radar systems. Also, the same day, the air forces of South Korea and the United States began drills for a 12-day run.

Observers say such mechanisms are aimed at neutralising any negative implications that North Korea's ongoing nuclear-missile weaponisation programmes might have on the territorial integrity of South Korea, Japan and the US. North Korea has had an aggressive weaponisation programme. Today, it is already a very powerful nuclear weapon State.

On April 13, the North fired a ballistic missile off its east coast. It flew 621 miles before falling in waters between North Korea and Japan. According to a study, on March 15 this year, North Korea launched the Hwasong-17 inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). The ICBM travelled up to a maximum altitude of over 6,000 km and flew a distance of 1,000 km for over 69 minutes before it landed in the waters off the east coast. The Hwasong-17 is capable of flying up to 15,000 km. This could be enough to hold the continental United States at risk.

The study says the Hwasong-17 is not the only strategic asset North Korea has today. It has already launched six close-range ballistic missiles (CRBM) and test-fired two submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCM).

Given the totalitarian nature and aggressive history of the current regime in the North, its growing nuclear-missile programmes do not but undermine regional and international security. Aware of this, Washington today wants its two most steadfast allies - Tokyo and Seoul - in Asia to work closer together to help it face off with an increasingly assertive North Korea (and China). US President Biden talks of the "importance of US-ROK-Japan trilateral cooperation for. . . shared security and prosperity, upholding common values and bolstering the rules-based order."

The observers suggest New Delhi would do well to observe constant vigilance over the North's growing missile programme. The North's ICBM is able to carry multiple warheads and has a range of around 15,000 km. This ICBM technology may pass on to the hands of Islamabad. The latter has had sinister designs against India. It may use the ICBM against India.

New Delhi may bear in mind that Pyongyang has been too close to Islamabad not to transfer any weapon system to it. Its clandestine defence technology cooperation with Pakistan has been no secret. It is well-documented that in 2003, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of the nuclear programme of Pakistan, traded know-how and technology with North Korea (Iran and Libya). In 2011, Khan claimed that North Korea had bribed senior officials of the Pakistani Army and got them to allow him to share nuclear technology and certain equipment with the Stalinist State in East Asia.

New Delhi may bear in mind also that in the mid-1990s, Pyongyang-Islamabad secret defence cooperation already led to the supply of Rodong missiles and technology to Pakistan. Further, New Delhi may keep in mind that Pyongyang hardly shares with it the kind of linkage it has had with Islamabad.

India does have diplomatic, cultural and economic contacts with the North. But there has never been much exchange of high-level visits between the two nations. It may be recalled that in September 1998, India's then Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi visited North Korea. In May 2018, some 20 years later, India's then Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh visited Pyongyang.

On the other hand, Pakistan has not only formal diplomatic and economic relationships with the North. They have had a lot more beyond. The two nations developed strong relationship way back in the 1970s when then Pakistan Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto made a State visit to North Korea. North Korea today maintains a vast Consulate General in Karachi and consulates in other cities of Pakistan.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

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