South Korea's military said Thursday that no immediate sign has been detected of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s test-launch of another ballistic missile to mark the 64th anniversary of the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
A senior official with South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told a regular briefing of the defense ministry that no immediate sign has been spotted yet of the DPRK's missile launch.
The official said the South Korean military was closely monitoring and trailing moves of the DPRK forces through the combined U.S.-South Korea surveillance assets to prepare for possible DPRK provocations.
The comments came amid global media speculations that Pyongyang had made preparations for the test-firings of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
On July 4, the DPRK announced a successful test-launch of an ICBM, dubbed Hwasong-14, which flew around 930 km and was lofted as high as about 2,800 km.
South Korea's military cast doubts on whether Pyongyang mastered the ICBM technology, saying the reentry vehicle development had yet to be demonstrated. The military called the Hwasong-14 a ballistic missile of intercontinental range.
The reentry technology is an essential part of the ICBM development as it allows the missile to pass through upper atmosphere without any damage to warhead.
Expectations had run high among local and global media outlets for Pyongyang to test-fire another intercontinental-range ballistic missile to validate its reentry technology on or around July 27 that marks the 64th anniversary of the armistice agreement.
The Korean Peninsula is technically in a state of war as the three-year Korean War ended in armistice in 1953, not a peace treaty.
