A South Korean military intelligence official confirmed yesterday that North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles this week, as the US urged Pyongyang to abide by its moratorium on missile tests.
There were conflicting reports about details of Wednesday's missile launches, but they underscored the dangers posed by the North's longer-range missiles and professed nuclear weapons program and its tendency to cause instability in the region.
"It is true that North Korea fired the missiles yesterday," the South Korean intelligence official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the information.
He added that there had been indications of a missile launch over the past two days, including the transfer of equipment to the area of the launch site at Sabujin, just below the city of Kim Chaek in North Hamkyong Province on North Korea's northeast coast on the Sea of Japan.
He could not confirm the direction of the missile launch.
On Wednesday, Japan's Kyodo news agency cited a "security source" in China as saying the missiles were fired by mistake in the direction of China during a military drill and apparently landed inside the North.
The agency also cited a "Western military source" as saying the short-range missiles were test-fired in an eastern direction from the North's eastern coast, toward the Sea of Japan.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that, "Indications are that North Korea launched two short-range missiles," similar to tests it has conducted in the past.
"We have consistently pointed out that North Korea's missile program is a concern that poses a threat to the region and the larger international community," McClellan said in an e-mail to reporters.
Analysts say the North's ballistic missiles are capable of hitting all of Japan as well as Hawaii, Alaska and perhaps portions of the US West Coast.
However, they said Wednesday's tests were more about checking performance than rattling sabers. They said if Pyongyang had wanted to send a strong signal it could have wheeled out far bigger missiles.
"If the North Koreans really wanted to send a signal, why not do a ballistic missile test?" Daniel Pinkston, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, said by telephone.
"We attach significance to it [the test] because it has the words 'North Korea' and `missile,'" Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank based in Hawaii, said by telephone.
"The North Koreans would be happy for us to attach a political message but I am not sure that was their intention," he said.
Pyongyang shocked Tokyo and other nations when it test-fired a ballistic missile over northern Japan in 1998, giving impetus to the US and Japanese efforts to upgrade their missile defense systems.
Although North Korea announced a moratorium on missile tests a year later, it has since test-fired short-range missiles many times, including one launched into the Sea of Japan last May.
US officials said North Korea should abide by its missile moratorium, and that its activities demonstrated the importance of getting Pyongyang to drop its boycott of six-nation talks on halting its nuclear weapons program.
Meanwhile, the US and Japan successfully tested an interceptor missile off Hawaii on Wednesday, further advancing a joint ballistic missile defense system aimed at shooting down enemy missiles.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing