North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills.
Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.”
Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water.
Photo: AP
The missiles flew a distance of about 350km, they said adding that South Korean and US authorities are analyzing their exact specifications.
The South’s military is ready to “respond overwhelmingly to any provocation,” the JCS added.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense also confirmed North Korea launched multiple ballistic missiles that reached a maximum altitude of about 80km and fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone near the Korean Peninsula’s east coast.
Seoul’s presidential Blue House condemned the launches as a “provocation that violates United Nations Security Council resolutions” and urged Pyongyang to immediately stop such acts.
It also ordered agencies to maintain readiness, as the launch occurred during the joint US-South Korea military drills.
The launches came hours after South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said that US President Donald Trump thinks a meeting with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-un would be “good.”
Washington has for decades led efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program, but summits, sanctions and diplomatic pressure have had little impact.
The Trump administration has pushed in the past few months to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, eyeing a possible summit with Kim Jong-un this year, potentially during Trump’s visit to Beijing at the end of this month.
Trump said during a trip to Asia in October last year that he was “100 percent” open to meeting with Kim Jong-un, a remark that went unanswered by the North.
After largely ignoring those overtures for months, Kim Jong-un recently said that the two nations could “get along” if Washington accepted Pyongyang’s nuclear status.
The number of the missiles launched yesterday was unusual, and that the timing was notable, analysts said.
“Global attention is currently focused on the war in the Middle East, and North Korea has historically carried out military provocations when it wants to draw attention to its presence,” Korea Institute for Military Affairs senior researcher Hong Sung-pyo said. “And that motive likely underlies this launch as well.”
Seoul and Washington on Monday started their springtime military drills “Freedom Shield,” which involves about 18,000 South Korean troops and runs until Thursday.
The nuclear-armed North, which attacked its neighbor in 1950 triggering the Korean War, has long described such exercises as rehearsals for invasion.
Earlier this week, Kim Yo-jong, a powerful confidante of her brother, Kim Jong-un, said the joint drills “may cause unimaginably terrible consequences.”
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS