Nth Korea continues missile tests

North Korea yesterday launched a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern waters and flew warplanes near the border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North’s recent barrage of weapons tests.

South Korea’s military also said it detected North Korea firing about 170 rounds of artillery from eastern and western coastal areas near the border region and that the shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the Koreas established under a 2018 military agreement on reducing tensions.

The North Korean moves suggest it would keep up a provocative run of weapons tests designed to bolster its nuclear capability. Some experts say North Korea eventually wants the US and others to accept it as a nuclear state, lifting economic sanctions and making other concessions.

While none of the North Korean artillery shells fell inside South Korean territorial waters, the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the firings as a clear violation of the 2018 agreement, which created buffer zones along land and sea boundaries and no-fly zones above the border to prevent clashes.

Yesterday’s ballistic launch extended a record number of missile demonstrations by North Korea this year as it exploits the distraction created by Russia’s war on Ukraine to accelerate its arms development and increase pressure on Washington and its Asian allies.

In response to North Korea’s intensifying testing activity and hostility, South Korea imposed unilateral sanctions on the North for the first time in five years, targeting 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organisations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programme.