North Korea conducts missile test ahead of South’s presidential polls
SEOUL: North Korea conducted its ninth weapons test of the year on Saturday, firing a suspected ballistic missile towards the sea to the east of the Korean peninsula just days before South Korea’s presidential election.
The launch drew condemnation from governments in the United States, South Korea, and Japan, which fear the North is preparing to conduct a major weapons test in coming months.
With denuclearisation talks stalled, North Korea conducted a record number of missile launches in January, and after a pause for most of February, resumed tests with a launch on February 27.
It appears to be preparing to launch a spy satellite in the near future, and has suggested it could resume testing of nuclear weapons or its longest range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for the first time since 2017.
“The significant pace at which North Korea is developing its missile-launching technology is not something our country and the surrounding regions can overlook,” Japan’s defense minister Nobuo Kishi said after the latest launch.
In South Korea, where citizens are already casting early votes ahead of Wednesday’s presidential election, the National Security Council (NSC) condemned North Korea’s “unprecedented repeated firing of ballistic missiles” as going against peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea will “even more closely monitor North Korea’s nuclear and missile-related facilities” including its main nuclear reactor facility at Yongbyon and the Punggye-ri nuclear weapons test side, the NSC said, according to a statement from the presidential Blue House.
On Friday, the US-based 38 North project, which monitors North Korea, said operations at Yongbyon are in full swing, producing fuel for potential nuclear weapons and an expansion of its nuclear production facilities.
Punggye-ri has been shuttered since North Korea declared a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear weapons tests in 2018.