North Korea fires missile, vows ‘fiercer’ response to US and allies

SEOUL - North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Thursday as it warned of “fiercer military responses” to Washington’s efforts to boost its security presence in the region together with its allies, saying the US is taking a “gamble it will regret”.

Pyongyang has

conducted a record number of such tests in 2022,

and also fired hundreds of artillery shells into the sea more recently as South Korea and the United States staged exercises, some of which involved Japan. South Korea’s military said the ballistic missile was launched from the North’s east coast city of Wonsan at 10.48am, flying 240km to an altitude of 47km at the speed of Mach 4.

The latest launch came less than two hours after North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui slammed a trilateral summit of the US, South Korea and Japan last Sunday, during which the leaders criticised Pyongyang’s weapons tests and pledged greater security cooperation.

At the talks, US President Joe Biden reaffirmed a commitment to reinforce extended deterrence and defend the two Asian allies with a “full range of capabilities”, including nuclear weapons.

Ms Choe said the three countries’ “war drills for aggression” failed to rein in the North but would rather bring a “more serious, realistic and inevitable threat” upon themselves.

“The keener the US is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence’ to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities... the fiercer the DPRK’s military counteraction will be,” Ms Choe said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, using the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The US will be well aware that it is gambling, for which it will certainly regret,” Ms Choe added.

The South Korean and US militaries carried out missile defence drills after the North’s latest launch, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, strongly condemning it. “We urge an immediate halt of North Korea’s series of ballistic missile launches, which is a grave provocation damaging peace and stability.”

The US has said since May that North Korea is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017, but its timing remains unclear.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo said in a joint statement after the summit that Pyongyang’s nuclear testing would incur a “strong and resolute response”.

Ms Choe said the North’s military activities are “legitimate and just counteractions” to the US-led drills.  REUTERS