South Korea is allowed now to develop ballistic missiles with a range of up to 800 kilometers, more than double the current limit.

South Korea is allowed now to develop ballistic missiles with a range of up to 800 kilometers, more than double the current limit, under a revised pact with the United States to better respond to perceived missile threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the S. Korean presidential office said Sunday.

The extended range can now cover all of the DPRK, South Korea's wartime enemy whose arsenal includes intermediate-range ballistic missiles with a range of 3,000 kilometers capable of striking the entire Korean peninsula as well as U.S. military installations in Japan and Guam.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that the revised agreement with the United States, South Korea's ally, keeps the current payload limit unchanged at 500 kilometers, according to Chun Young-woo, the presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security.

"The biggest purpose of the revision is curbing military provocations by North Korea," Chun Yung-Woo told reporters.

Worth to note that the US stations 28,500 troops in South Korea and guarantees a nuclear "umbrella" in case of any atomic attack. In return, Seoul accepts limits on its missile capabilities.

South Korea had long called for a revision of the missile pact it signed with Washington in 1979, which stopped the country from developing ballistic missiles of longer ranges despite growing missile threats posed by its northern neighbor.

The extension, however, runs counter to a global arms control agreement known as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an informal and voluntary association of 34 countries with a goal of stopping the spread of unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.

As a member of the agreement, South Korea had opted to build slower, surface-skimming cruise missiles with a range of up to 1, 500 kilometers, which are not subject to the MTCR.