North Korea fires barrage of missiles from air, land
Back-to-back launches on eve of parliamentary elections in South Korea
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — A barrage of North Korean missiles fired from the ground and fighter jets splashed down on the waters off the country’s east coast on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, a show of force on the eve of a key state anniversary in the North and parliamentary elections in the rival South.
The back-to-back launches were the latest in a series of weapons tests that North Korea has conducted in recent weeks amid stalled nuclear talks and outside worries about a possible coronavirus outbreak in the country.
North Korean troops based in the eastern coastal city of Munchon first launched several projectiles — presumed to be cruise missiles — on Tuesday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The weapons flew more than 150 kilometres at a low altitude off the North’s east coast, a South Korean defence official said. If confirmed, it would be the North’s first cruise missile launch in about three years, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
Later Tuesday, North Korea launched several Sukhoi-class fighter jets that fired an unspecified number of air-to-surface missiles toward the North’s eastern waters, the defence official said. The official said North Korea has recently appeared to be resuming its military drills that it had scaled back due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. He said other North Korean fighter jets also flew on patrol near the border with China on Tuesday.
All the recently tested missiles were short-range and didn’t pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland. A test of a missile capable of reaching the U.S. homeland would end North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on major weapons tests and likely completely derail nuclear diplomacy with the United States.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern at the latest missile launches by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK, the country’s official name. “Once again we call on the DPRK leadership to comply fully with its obligations under relevant Security Council resolutions,” Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, referring to UN bans on ballistic missile launches.