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North Korea’s recent string of weapons tests, including cluster munitions, marks its renewed show of military strength ahead of the US-China summit next month, even as Beijing may become a go-between to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Analysts say the summit could be an opportunity for China to arrange for subsequent talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.
On Thursday, Pyongyang said tests conducted over the previous two days involved a radar-evading missile tipped with cluster bombs capable of turning a targeted area as wide as 10 football fields into “ashes”.
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South Korea’s military said the North launched several short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan from the vicinity of the western port city of Wonsan on Wednesday morning, followed by another ballistic missile launch in the afternoon.
Missiles from the morning launch flew about 240km (149 miles) before landing in waters near Al Island, while the subsequent missile travelled more than 700km before falling into international waters south of Russia.
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The launch might have been aimed at testing the destructive capability of cluster munitions, and the second test was likely to assess how far the missile equipped with a cost-efficient engine could fly, according to analysts.
On Tuesday, North Korea launched an unidentified projectile eastward from an area near Pyongyang, but it apparently failed in the early stage of flight.
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