SEOUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's spy agency said Tuesday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had tested a ballistic missile with a range of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier this month.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported to the parliamentary intelligence committee on the DPRK's test on July 4 of a ballistic missile, saying the agency made a preliminary assessment that it was the test-launch of a ballistic missile with an ICBM range.
A member of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, who attended the closed-door reporting session, was quoted by local media as saying that it was the flight test in an initial stage when considering the DPRK missile fired from a fixed launcher of the development stage.
On July 4, the DPRK declared the successful test-firing of an ICBM. According to the DPRK's state news agency, the missile traveled about 930 km and was lofted as high as around 2,800 km.
An ICBM refers to a ballistic missile with a range of over 5,500 km. The DPRK-tested missile was estimated to have a range of 8,000-9,000 km.
Denying the DPRK's claim, the NIS said Pyongyang had yet to learn a reentry technology given that any successful reentry had not been confirmed yet.
Meanwhile, the South Korean intelligence agency said no immediate sign has been detected for the DPRK's another nuclear test though Pyongyang can conduct any atomic bomb test at any time.
Pyongyang carried out its fourth and fifth atomic bomb tests in January and September last year, escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
