Seoul, March 5 -- Amidst the recent escalation of tensions in West Asia into a full-scale conflict in Iran, North Korea's Kim Jong Un has inspected the test-firing of strategic cruise missiles from a new naval destroyer ahead of its commissioning, the country's state media was cited by Seoul's news agency Yonhap on Thursday.

Kim supervised the launch of sea-to-surface missiles from the destroyer Choe Hyon from a shipyard in the port city of Nampo in the west of the country, the South Korean news agency said, citing North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim oversaw the launch of sea-to-surface strategic cruise missiles from the destroyer on Wednesday and assessed the test as a "core" element of the new warship's capab...