North Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles

SEOUL/TOKYO - North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early on Sept 18, Seoul’s military said, Pyongyang’s second such weapons test in a week.

Leader Kim Jong Un’s regime has staged dozens of launches in 2024, part of a testing spree that experts say could be linked to

North Korea’s alleged illicit supplying of weapons

to ally Russia for use in Ukraine.

Pyongyang has denied any sanctions-busting weapons trade with Russia, but with diplomacy long stalled, it declared South Korea its “principal enemy” in 2024 and recently moved nuclear-capable weapons to border areas.

The launch follows North Korea’s recent

dispatch of its Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui to Moscow

– a key supporter of Mr Kim’s regime – for her second visit in less than a year.

The North is also preparing for a parliamentary meeting in October that is expected to approve measures likely to escalate tensions with South Korea, including incorporating the hostile relationship between the two Koreas into its Constitution.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it had “detected and (was) analysing several short-range ballistic missiles launched to the north-east around 0650”.

“In preparation for additional launches, our military has strengthened monitoring and vigilance, while closely sharing information” with allies Tokyo and Washington, it added.

Japan also confirmed the launch, with the country’s coast guard saying one missile had splashed down already.

“Vessels please pay attention to information coming ahead, and if you spot fallen objects please don’t approach closer but report to the coast guard,” it said in a statement.

Japan’s Defence Minister Minoru Kihara later said the missiles “appear to have landed around the eastern coast of North Korea’s inland area”, and therefore “are outside Japan’s EEZ (exclusive economic zone)”, adding that no damage was reported.

Seoul’s military said the missiles were fired from the North’s Kaechon area in South Phyongan province, and flew about 400km.

“North Korea’s missile launch is a clear act of provocation that seriously threatens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and we strongly condemn it,” Seoul’s JCS said in a statement.

On Sept 12, the North fired what Seoul described as

multiple short-range ballistic missiles

into waters east of the Korean peninsula, the nuclear-armed country’s first major weapons test since early July.

North Korean state media later claimed that this had been a test of a “new-type 600mm multiple rocket launcher”, which was overseen by Mr Kim.

North Korea has recently bolstered military ties with Moscow, with Russian President Vladimir Putin making a rare visit to Pyongyang in June, where he signed a mutual defence agreement with Mr Kim.

Experts have long said North Korean missiles are being deployed in Ukraine.

“Considering the resurgence of the war in Ukraine and (Russian security chief Sergei) Shoigu’s recent visit to North Korea, the latest missile launches could be for exports to Russia,” Professor Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

“Today’s missile launch may also be intended to strengthen anti-South sentiment among North Koreans as part of efforts to solidify the regime ahead of what is understood as the ‘constitutional formalisation’ of the hostile two-nation theory of the Koreas in October,” he added.

A report released last week by Conflict Armament Research employed debris analysis to show “that missiles produced this year in North Korea are being used” on the battlefield against Kyiv.

Mr Shoigu visited Pyongyang last weekend, state media reported, where

he met Mr Kim for talks

.

Moscow is seeking ammunition to continue its offensive in Ukraine.

Since May, North Korea has sent more than 5,000 trash-filled balloons southward, saying they are retaliation for propaganda balloons launched by South Korean activists.

Prof Yang said the Sept 18 launch could have been intended to “spread anxiety among the South Korean public alongside the recent release of balloons carrying trash”.

Last week, the North released

images of its uranium enrichment facility

for the first time, showing Mr Kim touring it as he called for more centrifuges to boost his nuclear arsenal.

The country, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is under rafts of United Nations sanctions for its banned weapons programmes, has never publicly disclosed details of its uranium enrichment facility.

Prof Yang said: “In the light of the recent disclosures regarding its uranium enrichment facilities, (the latest missile launches) may be paving the way for North Korea’s seventh nuclear test.”

North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes are banned by UN sanctions, but the country has long flouted the restrictions, thanks in part to support from allies Russia and China. AFP