North Korea Says It Test-Fired Missile From Submarine
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Saturday that it had successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine.

Although American officials had suspected North Korea was developing such a missile system, the country had not previously claimed to have conducted a test launching. The test, if confirmed, would pose a new challenge to the United States and its regional allies, South Korea and Japan, which have been trying to build missile defense capabilities to guard against potential North Korean missile attacks. Submarine-launched missiles are harder to detect and intercept.

“There took place an underwater test-fire of Korean-style powerful strategic submarine ballistic missile,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday. “The test-fire proved and confirmed that the ballistic missile fired from the submarine fully met the requirements of the latest military science and technology.”

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had ordered the development of the new missile system, and he inspected the test, the news agency said. It did not say where and when the test took place.

But in another report, the North Korean news agency gave a possible hint of where the launch might have occurred. It reported Saturday that Mr. Kim had visited a fisheries complex in Sinpo, a port on the east coast of North Korea, where American and South Korean analysts have said the North was developing a system for submarine-launched missiles.

Last June, North Korea released photos of Mr. Kim looking into a periscope inside a submarine. South Korean officials said they believed that the visit took place in a submarine base on an island off Sinpo. During the visit, Mr. Kim ordered the modernization of his country’s submarine fleet, and he told submarine crews to prepare to fight in waters far away from their homeland, North Korean state news media said at the time.

Mr. Kim called the test “an eye-opening success as signal as satellite launch,” comparing it to the North’s successful launching of a long-range rocket to put a satellite into orbit in December 2012. American officials believe that the satellite launching was part of North Korea’s efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets as far away as the United States mainland.

The Saturday edition of the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, carried photos of Mr. Kim watching a white missile blast out of the water and soar into the sky.

In a separate Korean-language version of its article, the Central News Agency quoted Mr. Kim as saying that once his country entered a “systematized production” of new submarine missiles and deployed them “in the near future,” it would “make our enemies lose sleep because they are like time bombs that can go off any time on their back.”

There was no immediate reaction from the South Korean Defense Ministry.

The news of a successful test-fire was most likely a surprise to South Korean military officials, who have privately told reporters that they believed it would take years for the North to develop such a submarine-launched ballistic missile. But warnings have increased in recent months as analysts detected what appeared to be the land-based tests of a submarine ejector launcher using vertical launch tubes, all conducted in Sinpo.

A submarine-launched ballistic missile adds to the range, secrecy and flexibility with which North Korea could threaten the United States, South Korea and Japan.

“North Korea’s development of a submarine-launched missile capability would eventually expand Pyongyang’s threat to South Korea, Japan and U.S. bases in East Asia, also complicating regional missile defense planning, deployment and operations,” Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert on the North Korean military, said in an article posted on the website 38North in January. “Submarines carrying land-attack missiles would be challenging to locate and track, would be mobile assets able to attack from any direction, and could operate at significant distances from the Korean peninsula.”

北韓稱：潛射彈道飛彈 試射成功

北韓今天宣布成功試射潛艇攜帶的彈道飛彈，但這項說法目前無法證實。

北韓中央通信社（KCNA）報導，潛艇接到命令後下潛，不久後，飛彈衝出水面直上雲霄。

北韓領導人金正恩親自視察試射，並稱讚新研發的飛彈是「世界級戰略武器，可以在任何水域攻擊、消滅侵犯主權和尊嚴的敵對武力」。

上述報導未說明飛彈射程或試射時間和地點等詳細資訊，只說試射地點遠離陸地；南韓聯合通訊社則報導，研判是在新坡南造船廠附近，因為北韓另一報導說，金正恩到當地視察漁業設施。

目前無法證實這項試射，如果屬實，將是北韓飛彈計畫的一大突破，但也違反聯合國禁止平壤試射彈道飛彈的決議。

發展潛艇發射彈道飛彈能力，將使得北韓核武威脅進入全新境界；美國研究機構今年1月表示，潛射飛彈對南韓、日本、美國構成新威脅。

北韓的潛艇艦隊主要是蘇聯時代老舊潛艇或改裝的中國潛艇，但北韓測試潛射飛彈的說法已流傳一段時間。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/world/asia/north-korea-says-it-test-fired-missile-from-submarine.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20150511/c11nkorea/zh-hant/

2015-05-09 聯合晚報 國際新聞組