North Korea announced on Wednesday that it test-fired sea-to-surface strategic cruise missiles in the Yellow Sea the previous day, a provocation timed just before U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Trump expressed a desire to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his October 29-30 trip, but North Korea's silence has fueled speculation that such a meeting is unlikely.
North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the missiles, improved for ship-based launches, were fired vertically at around 3 p.m. on October 28 in the Yellow Sea, flying for over 7,800 seconds along a preset route before striking the target. Details such as flight distance were not disclosed.
Leader Kim Jong-un did not oversee the test, and domestic media like the Rodong Sinmun newspaper did not cover it. Instead, Pak Jong-chon, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, supervised alongside key defense officials. Pak stated that the country had achieved "important success in putting our nuclear forces on a practical basis." He described the launch as "an extension of exercising the war deterrent and an act of exercising it in a more responsible manner to continuously test the reliability of different strategic offensive means and impress their abilities upon the enemies." Pak urged steady updates to North Korea's combat capabilities and emphasized the duty to "ceaselessly toughen the nuclear combat posture."
The KCNA noted that Pak also reviewed training for sailors on the new 5,000-ton destroyers Choe Hyon and Kang Kon, focusing on warship and weapons system operations.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detected the launch and said specifications are under analysis by South Korean and U.S. intelligence. The JCS affirmed: "Our military is maintaining a full readiness posture to respond overwhelmingly to any North Korean provocation, while closely monitoring the North's various movements under the firm combined defense posture with the United States."
The test occurred amid North Korea's silence on Trump's meeting offer, dimming prospects for a Kim-Trump summit. Lim Eul Chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, called it "a message that North Korea will stick to its route to strengthen its nuclear forces regardless of a shift in circumstances, such as the APEC summit." He added, "I say the possibility of a meeting between North Korea and the U.S. has grown slim."
This marked North Korea's first cruise missile test in five months. Experts believe the missiles are Hwasal-type, unveiled at Pyongyang's defense exhibition earlier this month. The Hwasal-1 was first tested in September 2021 with a presumed 1,500 km range, and the Hwasal-2 in January 2022 with 2,000 km. Hwasal means "arrow" in Korean. These are likely to be mounted on vertical-launch systems of North Korea's new destroyers as maritime nuclear-capable weapons. Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, estimated the flight time indicates about 1,500 km range, placing Japan and China within reach from the Yellow Sea.