North Korea tested new submarine-launched cruise missile, state media says

SEOUL, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-firing of new submarine-launched cruise missiles and reviewed a project to build a nuclear submarine, state-run media reported Monday.

The North's new Pulhwasal-3-31 missiles were fired Sunday and "flew in the sky above the East Sea for 7,421 [seconds] and 7,445 [seconds] to hit the island target," Korean Central News Agency reported. The flight times translate to just above two hours.

Kim praised the result and said that "the nuclear weaponization of the navy is an urgent task of the times," according to the KCNA report.

He also discussed "issues related to the building of a nuclear-powered submarine and other new-type warships."

South Korea's military reported that it detected a launch of several cruise missiles early Sunday morning from the area around the eastern city of Sinpo, where a shipyard used to build submarines is located.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday that U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities were analyzing the details of the missile test and questioned the accuracy of the North's account.

"We are weighing the possibility that the flight times claimed by North Korea were exaggerated," JCS spokesman Lee Seong-jun said at a regular press briefing.

Sunday's test of the Pulhwasal-3-31 was the second in less than a week, coming just days after Pyongyang launched several of the new missiles, believed to be nuclear-capable, off of the country's west coast into the Yellow Sea. It is the latest in a steady stream of provocations by North Korea, which has used weapons tests and heated rhetoric to keep tensions on the Korean Peninsula at their highest in years.

In recent weeks, the North unveiled an underwater drone it claims is capable of detonating a nuclear weapon and test-launched a new solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic warhead. Pyongyang also fired hundreds of artillery rounds near the de facto maritime border with the South, prompting evacuation orders on a pair of islands.

North Korea has increasingly signaled that it has no intention of engaging diplomatically with Washington or Seoul as it grows closer with its former Cold War ally, Russia.

Kim recently called for changing the North's constitution to define South Korea as its "primary enemy state and invariable principal enemy" and rejected a longstanding official policy goal of peaceful reunification.