North Korea has recently created an army division in charge of newly developed intermediate-range missiles capable of striking US forces in Japan and Guam, a South Korean news agency said yesterday.
The report came as North Korea stepped up its war rhetoric against the US and South Korea after the allies started annual drills aimed at improving their defense capabilities.
The North’s People’s Army recently launched a division supervising operational deployment of missiles with a range of more than 3,000km that it had developed in recent years, Yonhap news agency reported citing an unidentified South Korean government source.
The missiles could pose a threat to US forces in Japan, Guam and other Pacific areas that are to be redeployed in time of emergency on the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap said. The report, however, didn’t provide further details such as how many missiles the new division possesses and where they are positioned.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said yesterday it couldn’t confirm the Yonhap report. However, a ministry document published last year showed that the North deployed a new type of medium-range missile believed to be the one it displayed during a military parade in 2007.
If confirmed, the division’s launch could suggest that the North has succeeded in developing more medium-range missiles since 2007 and it needed a bigger unit to manage them, said Ohm Tae-am of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.
The division’s creation would also mean the North has a unit whose primary role is to prevent the US from redeploying its troops in the Pacific to the Korean Peninsula in the event of a conflict, said Baek Seung-joo of the same institute.
North Korea’s missile program and nuclear weapons development program are major regional security concerns.
The North conducted a long-range rocket test in April in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits the country from engaging in any ballistic missile-related activities.
Yesterday, the North continued its salvo against the US and South Korea over their military drills. About 18,000 US soldiers and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops are taking part in 11 days of drills that began on Monday.
“This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It said the North will continue to bolster its nuclear capability as long as the US military threats persist.
The ministry, however, said the North is ready for both dialogue and war, a position that contrasts with a military statement on Sunday that the North would break off dialogue with the US in response to the drills.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS