SEOUL (TIP): North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles, South Korea‘s military said June 15, shortly after Pyongyang warned of an “inevitable” response to ongoing US-South Korea joint military drills.
South Korea and the United States, which have ramped up defence cooperation in response to growing threats from the nuclear-armed North, are currently carrying out joint large-scale live-fire “annihilation” exercises.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had detected the launch of “two short-range ballistic missiles from the Sunan area into the East Sea between 19:25 and 19:37 (1025 to 1037 GMT),” referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
“We have stepped up monitoring in case of further provocations and are maintaining readiness in close coordination with the United States,” the military said. Tokyo also confirmed the missile launches, with a defence ministry official telling reporters that the two missiles had landed in waters within Japan’s exclusive economic zone. “The missiles may have flown on irregular trajectories,” Japan’s top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters, adding that one had flown 850 kilometres (530 miles) and the other around 900 kilometres at altitudes of 50 kilometres, before landing in Japan’s EEZ.
In a joint statement, the United States, South Korea and Japan condemned the launches, saying they violated UN Security Council resolutions and demonstrate the threat “unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs pose to the region.”
And in a separate move, Washington on Thursday imposed sanctions against two North Koreans based in Beijing over their alleged connection to Pyongyang’s weapons program.
“The DPRK’s development of its missile programs directly threatens regional and international security, and the United States will continue to take action to curtail activities in support of those programs,” State Secretary Antony Blinken said in a statement, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.
‘Inevitable’ response
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with diplomacy stalled and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un declaring his country an “irreversible” nuclear power, as well as calling for ramped-up weapons production, including of tactical nukes.
North Korea has conducted multiple sanctions-busting launches this year, including test-firing its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles, and last month attempting to put a military spy satellite into orbit.
In response, the hawkish administration of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has bolstered defence cooperation with the United States and Japan, including expanding joint drills, which had been scaled back because of Covid-19, and during a bout of ill-fated diplomacy. (AFP)