NKorea fires cruise missiles toward sea
SEOUL: North Korea fired several cruise missiles toward the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state.
Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an “underwater nuclear weapon system” and a solid-fueled hypersonic ballistic missile.
“Our military detected several cruise missiles launched by North Korea toward the Yellow Sea at [about] 7 a.m. today,” the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. “The detailed specifications are being closely analyzed by South Korean and US intelligence authorities.”
Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang.
Cruise missiles tend to be jetpropelled and fly at a lower altitude than more sophisticated ballistic missiles, making them harder to detect and intercept.
The latest launch comes as South Korea is conducting a 10day special forces infiltration drill off its east coast, “in light of serious security situations” with the North, that runs until Thursday, the South’s navy said.
“We will achieve our mission to infiltrate deep into the enemy’s territory and neutralize them completely under any circumstances,” the drill’s commander said in a statement.
Recent months have seen a sharp deterioration in ties between the two Koreas, with both sides jettisoning key tension-reducing agreements, ramping up frontier security, and conducting live-fire drills along the border.
Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the South his country’s “principal enemy,” jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach, and threatened war over “even 0.001 millimeter” of territorial infringement.
The North Korean leader also said Pyongyang would not recognize the two countries’ de facto maritime border, the Northern Limit Line, and called for constitutional changes allowing the North to “occupy” Seoul in war, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
In Seoul, President Yoon Suk Yeol told his Cabinet that should the nucleararmed North carry out a provocation, South Korea would hit back with a response “multiple times stronger,” pointing to his military’s “overwhelming response capabilities.”
At Pyongyang’s yearend policy meetings, Kim threatened a nuclear attack on the South and called for a buildup of his country’s military arsenal ahead of armed conflict he warned could “break out any time.”
Earlier this month, the North launched a solid-fuel hypersonic missile, just days after Pyongyang staged live-fire exercises near the country’s tense maritime border with South Korea, which prompted counter-exercises and evacuation orders for some border islands belonging to the South.
Kim also successfully put a spy satellite into orbit late last year, after receiving what Seoul said was Russian help, in exchange for arms transfers for Moscow’s war on Ukraine.