North Korea fires suspected missile as South Korea breaks ground for 'peace' railway

People watch a TV broadcasting file footage of a news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile off its east coast, in Seoul, South Korea, Jan 5, 2022.SEOUL - North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile off its east coast on Wednesday , just hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a rail line he hopes will eventually connect the divided Korean peninsula.

A few hours later, Moon visited the South Korean east coastal city of Goseong near the border with the North, where he broke ground for a new rail line that he called "a stepping stone for peace and regional balance" on the Korean Peninsula. Reconnecting the two Koreas by rail was a centrepiece of meetings between Kim and Moon in 2018, but those efforts went nowhere as talks aimed at convincing North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons in exchange for easing international sanctions faltered in 2019.

In state media summaries of a speech Kim gave ahead of the New Year, the North Korean leader did not specifically mention missiles or nuclear weapons, but said that national defence must be bolstered. It has also stuck to a self-imposed moratorium on testing its largest intercontinental ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons. The last tests of ICBMs or a nuclear bomb were in 2017, before Kim met with then US President Donald Trump.

"Recent ballistic missile tests and military parades suggest that North Korea is continuing to build a nuclear warfighting capability designed to evade regional ballistic missile defences," the report said.

Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines

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