North Korea’s missile launch increases tension
TOKYO: North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island into the sea early today, prompting warnings to residents to take cover and drawing a sharp reaction from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The test, one of the most provocative ever from the reclusive state, came as US and South Korean forces conduct annual military exercises on the peninsula, to which North Korea strenuously objects.
North Korea has conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests under young leader Kim Jong Un, the most recent on Saturday, but firing projectiles over mainland Japan is rare.
“North Korea’s reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
Abe said he spoke to US President Donald Trump today and they agreed to increase pressure on North Korea. Trump said the US was “100 percent with Japan”.
South Korea’s military said the missile was launched from near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and flew 2 700km, reaching an altitude of about 550km.
Four South Korean fighter jets bombed a military firing range today after President Moon Jae-in asked the military to demonstrate capabilities to counter North Korea.
South Korea and the US had discussed deploying additional “strategic assets” on the Korean peninsula, the presidential Blue House said in a statement, without giving more details.
North Korea remained defiant.
“The US should know that it can neither browbeat the DPRK with any economic sanctions and military threats and blackmail nor make the DPRK flinch from the road chosen by itself,” North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun said today, using the initials of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Some experts said the test appeared to have been of a recently developed intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile, but there was no clear consensus.
This month, North Korea threatened to fire four missiles into the sea near the US Pacific territory of Guam after Trump said it would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the US.
“Alas, Pyongyang has demonstrated that its threats to the US base on Guam are not a bluff,” Konstantin Kosachev, chairperson of Russia’s upper house of parliament’s international affairs committee, said on social media.
Television and radio broadcasters in Japan broke into their regular programming with a “J-Alert” warning citizens of the missile launch. Bullet train services were temporarily halted and warnings went out over loudspeakers in towns in Hokkaido.
“I was woken by the missile alert on my cellphone,” said Ayaka Nishijima, 41, an office worker on Honshu island.
“I didn’t feel prepared at all. Even if we get these alerts there’s nowhere to run. It’s not like we have a basement or bomb shelter, all we can do is get away from the window,” she told Reuters by text message.
The UN Security Council would meet later today to discuss the test, diplomats said.
In Washington, the Pentagon said it was gathering information.
China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated its calls for restraint on all sides, saying it opposed North Korea going against UN resolutions to launch missiles but adding that sanctions and pressure could not solve the issue. It calls for the US and North Korea to open talks. – Reuters