SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hailed the test launch of new strategic cruise missiles from a submarine as a key moment in building his nation's naval power, state media said on Monday.

Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an "underwater nuclear weapon system" and a solid-fueled hypersonic ballistic missile.

Kim expressed "great satisfaction" over Sunday's test, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, "which is of strategic significance in carrying out the plan... for modernizing the army, which aims at building a powerful naval force."

The North Korean leader separately inspected "the building of a nuclear submarine" and discussed issues related to the construction of other new warships, it added without giving details.

A nuclear-powered submarine has been on a laundry list of strategic weapons set out by Kim at a key party congress in 2021, along with a hypersonic warhead, spy satellites and solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The KCNA said Sunday's "submarine-launched strategic cruise missiles" (SLCM) were in the air for approximately two hours, but did not say how far they flew or whether they had been launched from above or below the water.

Photos carried by state media showed a missile soaring up into the sky from the water, leaving a huge trail of white smoke, but it was not clear whether it had been fired from a submarine.

Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang.

Kim "guided" the launch of the two Pulhwasal-3-31 missiles on Sunday, the KCNA reported.

The Pulhwasal-3-31 is a new generation of strategic cruise missiles that Pyongyang said it had only tested for the first time on Wednesday.

Cruise missiles tend to be jet-propelled and fly at a lower altitude than more sophisticated ballistic missiles, making them harder to detect and intercept.

North Korea's exact sea-based launch capabilities remain unclear, and previous tests were carried out from older vessels, including from a submerged platform, rather than an actual submarine.

In March last year, North Korea launched two SLCMs that flew 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), Pyongyang said then, putting all of South Korea and much of Japan within range.

But analysts said it appeared they had been launched from above water level, thereby removing the stealth benefit of the weapon.

Improving the country's naval power was one of the key decisions reached at the year-end party meeting, and given that Sunday's launch was personally overseen by Kim, analysts say it signals the direction of Pyongyang's defense policy this year.

"They will focus on improving naval power in the East Sea and test weapons systems that can be mounted on submarines, with the first attempt being this strategic cruise missile," said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies.

"In the future, it will lead to the development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles and nuclear-powered submarines, which will have a much higher impact than SLCMs," he added.

North Korea already has an operational submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) called the Pukguksong-3, with an estimated range of 1,900 km.

Proven SLBM capability would take North Korea's arsenal to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and a second-strike capability in the event of an attack.

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