{"id":29711,"date":"2025-05-26T03:35:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T03:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/north-korea-arrests-senior-official-over-warship-launch-failure\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T03:35:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T03:35:31","slug":"north-korea-arrests-senior-official-over-warship-launch-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/north-korea-arrests-senior-official-over-warship-launch-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea arrests senior official over warship launch failure"},"content":{"rendered":"


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North Korea has arrested a fourth official over the failed launch of a new warship<\/a> that has enraged the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n

Ri Hyong-son, deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department, was “largely responsible for the serious accident” last week, state-run news agency KCNA said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The 5,000-ton destroyer had tipped over and damaged its hull<\/a>, in what Kim had described as a “criminal act” that “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride”.<\/p>\n

The vessel is being repaired under the guidance of an expert group, KCNA said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Ri, who is part of the party’s Central Military Commission, is the highest level official arrested over the incident so far. <\/p>\n

The commission commands the Korean People’s Army and is responsible for developing and implementing North Korea’s military policies. <\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Pyongyang also detained three officials<\/a> at the northern Chongjin shipyard, where the destroyer was built and where its launch failed. <\/p>\n

The officials were the chief engineer, its construction head and an administrative manager.<\/p>\n

Kim earlier said Wednesday’s incident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism”. <\/p>\n

It is not clear what punishment they might face, but the authoritarian state has been known to sentence officials it finds guilty of wrongdoing to forced labour and even death.<\/p>\n

It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents, though it has done this a handful of times in the past after failed satellite launches.<\/p>\n

Some analysts believe Kim’s swift and severe response was meant as a signal that Pyongyang will continue to advance its military capabilities.<\/p>\n

“This sends a clear message to South Korea and the US that North Korea isn’t going to stop in trying to repair and strengthen its naval technology,” Edward Howell, a North Korea expert at Oxford University told ABC news.<\/p>\n

A commentary on Seoul-based Daily NK, a news outlet focussing on North Korea, suggests that Kim’s “transparency, however reluctant” shows he views naval modernisation as such a critical priority, and that “even public failures cannot derail the broader narrative of military advancement”. <\/p>\n

Last week’s shipyard accident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a similar warship in another part of the country. <\/p>\n

Kim had called that warship a “breakthrough” in modernising North Korea’s navy and said it would be deployed early next year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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North Korea has arrested a fourth official over the failed launch of a new warship that has enraged the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un. Ri Hyong-son, deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department, was “largely responsible for the serious accident” last week, state-run news agency KCNA said on Monday. The 5,000-ton destroyer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29713,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29711\/revisions\/29713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}