SEOUL – North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of weapons tests as the South and the United States conduct their largest joint military drills in years.
The missiles were fired at around 7.40am local time (6.40am Singapore time) from South Hwanghae province, near the west coast, and flew about 620km, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
The South Korean military was on high alert and maintaining a full readiness posture in close coordination with the United States, the JCS added in a statement.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan was collecting information on the missiles, and that it has not confirmed any damage within the country related to the launch.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the missiles have not been confirmed to have flown into Japan’s territory or exclusive economic zones.
“We see there is a possibility that North Korea will step up further provocative actions, including missile launches and nuclear tests,” he said. “We will continue a close cooperation with the US and South Korea over North Korea’s military moves, and gather and analyse information with surveillance.”
The US Indo-Pacific Command said the latest launches did not pose an immediate threat to US personnel or territory, or to its allies, but said the North’s unlawful weapons programmes had a destabilising effect.
South Korea’s military “strongly condemned” North Korea, calling the repeated missile launches a grave provocation threatening the region’s peace and security, and a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
“The South Korea-US alliance will carry out our exercises and training as planned even if North Korea tries to hamper our Freedom Shield drills with provocations,” a spokesman for South Korea’s Defence Ministry told a briefing.
The launch comes two days after North Korea test-fired two strategic cruise missiles from a submarine, and as the US and South Korea conduct major military drills to counter the North’s growing threats.
South Korean and American forces on Monday began 11 days of joint drills, dubbed “Freedom Shield 23”. The drills will be held on a scale not seen since 2017 to counter the North’s growing threat.
North Korea has long bristled at the allies’ drills as a rehearsal for invasion.
On Sunday, North Korean state media KCNA reported that the country has decided to take “important practical” war deterrence measures, saying, “War provocations of the US and South Korea are reaching the red line.”
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that the US would not let “any steps North Korea takes deter us or constrain us from the actions that we feel are necessary to safeguard stability on the Korean peninsula”.
The US will hold an informal meeting of UN Security Council members on Friday on human-rights abuses in North Korea.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has denounced the planned meeting as “the most intensive expression” of US “hostile policy” against Pyongyang, and warned it will take “the toughest counteraction”.
The North has conducted a record number of missile tests and drills in the past year in what it says is an effort to boost its nuclear deterrence and make more weapons fully operational. REUTERS
