North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the test-fire of a strategic submarine underwater ballistic missile (not pictured), in this undated file photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on May 9, 2015.
SEOUL: South Korea’s military on Monday refused confirmation on a North Korean submarine, which the US media reported had gone missing for days, reports China’s Xinhua news agency.
CNN reported Saturday citing US officials as saying that one of North Korean submarines operating off its east coast went missing earlier last week.
According to the media report, the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub, which US spy satellites, aircraft and ships had also been secretly watching.
The US military believed that the North Korean sub suffered some types of failure during an exercise.
Seoul’s Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Kyun told a regular press briefing that the intelligence authorities of both South Korea and the US maintain a position that they cannot confirm the relevant report.
The report came amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula after Seoul and Washington launched their largest-ever joint annual war games, code-named Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, last Monday.
The drills, which Pyongyang has denounced as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion, would last until April 30.
North Korea repeated its warnings against the spring exercises on Sunday, threatening a “pre-emptive and offensive nuclear strike” toward South Korea and the US mainland.
Before the launch of the drills, top North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered nuclear warheads to be placed always on standby for use at any time.
Kim said on Wednesday that his country has succeeded in miniaturising nuclear warheads to fit on ballistic missiles at a meeting with nuclear scientists and technicians.
Regarding this, Moon reiterated Seoul’s position that Pyongyang has advanced its nuclear miniaturisation technology to a significant level but has yet to secure a technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads.
He said US and South Korean intelligence authorities are precisely analysing whether North Korea secured nuclear warheads small enough to be mounted on ballistic missiles. – Bernama