Blue House Believes North Korea Cannot Fire An ICBM from a Mobile Launcher

Even if North Korea could not yet fire an ICBM from a mobile launcher continued testing will ensure they achieve the capability relatively soon:

SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Yonhap) — North Korea is not believed to be capable yet of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) from transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles, the chief of South Korea’s defense intelligence agency said Wednesday.

The issue has been a source of controversy in Seoul, after Chung Eui-yong, chief of Cheong Wa Dae’s National Security Office, has said it is “technically difficult” for the North to fire ICBMs from mobile launchers. Conservative critics accused Chung of being naive.

“The chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency (Kim Yong-hwan) said that he does not believe that North Korea has such capabilities,” Rep. Lee Hye-hoon, the chief of the intelligence panel, told reporters during a parliamentary audit into the agency.

Kim was also quoted by Rep. Lee Eun-jae of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party as saying that North Korea tried to fire an ICBM from a TEL but failed to do so due to some unidentified problems. 

Wednesday’s comment is contradictory to his earlier assessment. During an audit into the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) earlier this month, Kim said that North Korea’s ICBM technology “has been advanced to the degree where the missile can be fired from a TEL.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but for the three ICBM tests in 2017 they fired the missiles from test stands after transporting them on mobile launchers. I cannot imagine the North Korean scientists have not improved their ICBM designs to attempt a TEL launch whenever they get the green light to resume testing.