A prominent expert on North Korean affairs says the jury is still out on whether the reclusive state has just added a cruise missile to its arsenal - despite international reports to the contrary, SIA reports quoting the AA.
Daniel Pinkston, North East Asia Deputy Project Director with the International Crisis Group, spoke exclusively to the Anadolu Agency on Wednesday about his reservations.
The claim that North Korea may now have cruise missile capabilities surfaced over a week ago courtesy of South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper - citing a propaganda video released by the North.
This week the rumor gained further ground after an article on the U.S.-based 38 North website claimed a weapon shown for a split-second within the 50-minute video appeared to be identical to a Russian Kh-35 cruise missile.
The footage also features North Korean leader Kim Jong-un laughing among a series of montages, including all-female artillery units.
"Nothing in that video confirms that North Korea is in possession of a Kh-35," said Pinkston, based in South Korea's capital Seoul. "Why would they show off a new weapon for barely a second at the end of this film?"
North Korea has proved notoriously challenging to second-guess, having repeatedly airbrushed political figures out of official images after they apparently suffered a fall from grace - analysts sometimes point to such cases as evidence of changes in the country's hierarchy.
A recent example was the purging of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's uncle Jang Song-thaek, who was executed last December.
"We have to bear in mind that this is a state with a track record of manipulating images to suit a message or even to re-write history. It's not impossible this footage could have been inserted in a deception effort to convince people that they have this capability but perhaps that's giving them too much credit," Pinkston suggested.
North Korea has already conducted three nuclear tests in the past, as well as numerous ballistic missile tests, but as Pinkston explained, "cruise missiles are difficult to intercept because they fly low. It would be another weapon in their arsenal to strike ships at sea."
He also pointed out that "there have been some short-range missile tests over the past year that may have involved either short-range tactical ballistic missiles or short-range anti-ship cruise missiles. But because they fly at such a short range and low altitude, it is impossible to identify the missile characteristics."
Pinkston concluded by calling for more data, but warned that if North Korea has actually acquired cruise missile capabilities, "evidence will be forthcoming."
The North's import options are heavily limited due to United Nations sanctions, but it has repeatedly threatened South Korea and the U.S. with military aggression, including exchanging artillery fire with the South in the Yellow Sea on more than one occasion this year.
The two Koreas remain technically at war as they never signed a peace treaty at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
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