Chosun:
South Korea has almost completed the development of a new ballistic missile with a range of 800 km and is getting ready for a test launch, the military said Friday.
In a parliamentary audit of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an officer said, “We’re considering test-launching a missile into open seas south of Korea’s air defense identification zone.
Waters south of the submerged rocks of Ieo are about 800 km away from the Agency for Defense Development’s missile launch site in Taean, South Chungcheong Province.
Seoul has been developing missiles with a range from 300 km to 800 km under new South Korea-U.S. missile guidelines revised in October 2012.
If the missile works it could strike anywhere in North Korea from the southern coast.
But the officer reversed his claim after the parliamentary audit came to an end, saying, “There was a misunderstanding in the process of answering a question about whether the country would have the space to test an 800 km-range missile. We have no immediate plan to test such a missile.”
