NKorea fires missile after threatening ‘fiercer’ step
SEOUL: North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern waters on Thursday, hours after it threatened to launch “fiercer” military responses to the United States bolstering its security commitment to its East Asian allies South Korea and Japan.
The missile fired from the North’s eastern coastal Wonsan area at 10:48 a.m. (9:48 a.m. in Manila) landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to its neighbors. After detecting the launch, South Korean, American and Japanese militaries quickly condemned the launch that they say threatens stability in the region.
It was North Korea’s first ballistic missile firing in eight days and the latest in its barrage of tests in recent months. Pyongyang previously said some of the tests were simulations of nuclear attacks on South Korean and US targets. Many experts say the North would eventually want to enhance its nuclear capability to wrest bigger concessions from its rivals.
Earlier on Thursday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned that a recent US-South KoreaJapan summit accord on Pyongyang would leave tensions on the Korean Peninsula “more unpredictable.”
Choe’s statement was North Korea’s first official response to US President Joe Biden’s trilateral summit with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.
In their joint statement, Biden, South Korean President Yoon
Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida strongly condemned North Korea’s recent missile tests and agreed to work together to strengthen deterrence. Biden also reaffirmed the US’ commitment to defend Seoul and Tokyo with a full range of capabilities, including its nuclear arms.
“The keener the US is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence’ to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, the fiercer [North Korea’s] military counteraction will be, in direct proportion to it,” Choe said. “It will pose a more serious, realistic and inevitable threat to the US and its vassal forces.”
Choe didn’t say what steps North Korea could take, but said “the US will be well aware that it is gambling, for which it will certainly regret.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry responded later on Thursday that the purpose of the trilateral summit was to coordinate a joint response to curb and deter advancing nuclear and missile threats by the North. Spokesman Moon Hong Sik told reporters that security cooperation between Seoul, Washington and Tokyo was contributing to solidifying a US extended deterrence to its allies.
The North Korean missile launched on Thursday flew about 240 kilometers (150 miles) at the maximum altitude of 47 km (29 mi), said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. It called the launch “a grave provocation” that undermines peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
Tokyo’s Defense Ministry said Pyongyang’s repeated missile launches threatened the peace and safety of Japan, the region and the international community. The US Pacific Command said the launch “highlights the destabilizing impact of (North Korea’s) unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”
After the launch, South Korea’s
Joint Chiefs of Staff said Seoul and Washington’s armed forces staged missile defense drills earlier in the day to review a combined readiness to North Korean provocations. But South Korean military officials refused to provide further details of the exercises, including whether they were already scheduled or were arranged after detecting signs of an imminent North Korean missile launch.
North Korea has steadfastly maintained its recent weapons testing activities are legitimate military counteractions to US-South Korean military drills, which it views as a practice to launch attacks on the North. Washington and Seoul have said their exercises are defensive in nature.