South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) says North Korea exaggerated the details of the new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile that the reclusive state test-fired on Tuesday. 

The JCS on Wednesday reaffirmed its joint assessment with Washington and Tokyo released on Tuesday that the missile flew some 600 kilometers, saying the North’s claim that the missile traveled one-thousand kilometers was over exaggerated. 

With this statement, the JCS appears to have refuted claims that it had failed to accurately detect the North’s hypersonic missile given the difference in its calculation with the North’s on how far the missile traveled. 

The JCS also viewed as an exaggeration the North’s claims that it intentionally delayed the ignition of the missile’s second-stage engine and changed the direction of flight during the engine’s combustion process. 

The JCS assessed that the North’s launch on Tuesday focused on testing the flight performance of a missile in the early stages of development, adding that some progress is estimated to have been made in some related technologies.