TOKYO, February 8. /TASS/. The system the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan are using to share information about missile launches of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been a "porous umbrella" that will never prevent "the hail of fire from pouring down," a North Korean researcher wrote in an article.

"Though they [the hostile forces] are tediously advertising that they detected the DPRK’s ballistic missile launch earlier than before through the operation of the missile information-sharing system, they failed to follow it to the last because the missile disappeared from the radar before the landing and Japan and the puppet forces (South Korea - TASS) announced the missile range several hundred kilometers different," the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim Sol Hwa, a researcher of the Institute for Japan Studies at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, as saying.

"It goes without saying that the moves of the US, Japan and the puppet forces to share missile information are pursuant to the US scenario for realizing its hegemonic strategy to contain their strategic rivals by forming a triangular military alliance in the Asia-Pacific region under the pretext of coping with the DPRK’s `missile threat’," the North Korean researcher said. "It is nothing but a foolish attempt to prevent the hail of fire from pouring down with a porous umbrella called 'missile information-sharing system'," he concluded.

The January 14 test of North Korea’s solid-fuel ballistic missile was a planned test and had nothing to do with the situation in the region, the agency reported.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said then that the North Korean missile had flown at least 500 km and reached an altitude of up to 50 km before falling into the Sea of Japan. However, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the North’s missile had traveled about 1,000 km.