North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile from its east coast, marking its first missile launch in just over a week, according to South Korea’s military on Thursday.
A South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff statement said it detected a Pyongyang launch from the Wonsan area of Gangwon Province at 10:48 a.m., but did not provide further details.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff also said: Around Yonhap: “While enhancing surveillance and vigilance, our forces are working closely with the United States to maintain full readiness.”
It was the first launch in eight days. The last time North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile into the East Sea was on November 9th.
The latest launch comes just hours after North Korea threatened to launch “more intense” military action against the United States if Washington chooses to continue its security commitments to protect regional allies. It was conducted.
North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choi Song Hue warned on Thursday ahead of the missile launch that the recent US-Japan-South Korea summit agreement on North Korea would make tensions on the Korean Peninsula “more unpredictable”.
The statement marked North Korea’s first formal response to a trilateral meeting between President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol in Cambodia on November 13.
At another meeting with Kishida on the same day, Biden said, “I reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to extended deterrence. [South Korea] U.S. commitment to use all U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities, and to identify additional measures to further strengthen deterrence, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities. emphasized. [North Korea’s] A nuclear threat, according to a White House statement.
South Korean leader Yoon Seok-yeol said on Nov. 13 that North Korea had launched about 50 missiles since taking office in May, with “intensive” missile launches since the end of October.
One of these missiles is said to have crossed the maritime border and landed in South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the Northern Limit Line, a maritime demarcation line drawn by the United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War. Yun pointed out. war. He called it a “very serious provocation” by North Korea.
The missiles were launched during a joint exercise between the US, South Korean and Japanese forces. These exercises, for the first time since 2017, involved a US aircraft carrier and her US B-1B supersonic bomber.
Over the past few years, annual military exercises between Seoul and Washington have been scaled back or canceled, in part to support a now-dormant diplomacy with North Korea and prevent the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Mimi Nguyen Ly covers world news with a focus on US news. Please contact her at [email protected]