North Korea says it has tested a new ICBM engine

​The statement, released on Friday, follows an order from the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, to develop a new ICBM that is harder to intercept. < /p>

SEOUL - North Korea said Friday it had successfully tested a powerful new missile engine this week, indicating the country is working to build one a ​solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile​, a new weapon that its leader, Kim Jong-un, wanted to add to his growing nuclear arsenal.

With Mr. Kim Watching, engineers from North Korea's Academy of Defense Sciences conducted a ground test of a "high-thrust solid-fuel engine" at the Sohae Satellite Launch Field in Tongchang- ri, in northwestern North Korea, the country's official information center said. The Agency reported on Friday.

"This important test has provided a safe scientific and technological guarantee for the development of another new-type strategic weapon system. The news agency said in its English-language dispatch. The agency released photos it said showed the engine, "the first of its kind in the country," being tested in a horizontal position.

North Korea said the test confirmed the engine's capabilities, including its thrust power, but like most of the North's technical claims, Friday's report didn't could not be independently verified.

The three ICBMs North Korea has tested so far - Hwasong-14, Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 – use liquid propellants, which missile experts say makes them easier to target for the US and its allies for pre-emptive strikes s, as it takes hours to load liquid fuel onto missiles before they are launched. Under Mr. Kim, the country has tried to convert its missiles from liquid fuel to solid fuel, which would make them easier to conceal and transport, and faster to launch.

A series of new short-range ballistic missiles that North Korea has tested in recent years used solid fuel. But Friday's announcement was the first time North Korea has claimed to have successfully tested a large solid-fuel engine that could be used for an ICBM. When Mr. Kim announced his ambitious arms buildup program at a congress of the ruling Workers' Party in early 2021, he included the development of solid-fuel ICBMs.

North Korea said its new missile engine could produce 140 tons of thrust. If the claim is true, it is "an ICBM-class engine," said Kim Dong-yub, a North Korean weapons expert at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. The Northern Hwasong-15 ICBM, which the country said was capable of reaching the entire continental United States, uses a ​liquid-fueled booster engine that can produce 160 tons of thrust​ , according to missile experts.

The United States and its allies are closely monitoring the activities of the Sohae facilities, which North Korea says were built to launch satellites. The country last launched a satellite from there in February 2016. North Korea has also used the site to test engines for its ballistic missiles. A series of United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from testing any technologies that can be used to manufacture ballistic missiles.

Korea du Nord tested new rocket engines at Sohae before testing new missiles, including the intermediate-range and long-range ballistic missiles it tested in 2017.

Continued