A barrage of North Korean missiles fired from both the ground and fighter jets yesterday splashed down in waters off the country’s east coast, South Korea’s military said, a major show of force on the eve of a key state anniversary in the North and legislative elections in the South.
The back-to-back launches were the most high-profile among a series of weapons tests that North Korea has conducted in the past few months amid stalled nuclear talks and outside worries about a possible COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
North Korean troops based in the eastern coastal city of Munchon first launched several projectiles — presumed to be cruise missiles — yesterday morning, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The weapons flew more than 150km off the North’s east coast, a South Korean defense official said.
If confirmed, it would be the North’s first cruise missile launch since June 2017, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Later yesterday, North Korea launched several Sukhoi fighter jets that fired an unspecified number of air-to-surface missiles toward the North’s eastern waters, the official said.
North Korea has appeared to be resuming its military drills that it had scaled back due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, the official said, adding that other North Korean fighter jets also flew on patrol near the border with China.
In the past few weeks, North Korea has test-launched a variety of missiles and other weapons amid deadlocked nuclear negotiations with the US.
Yesterday’s launches came a day before North Korea marks the 108th birthday of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. They also came a day ahead of South Korean legislative elections.
It is unusual for North Korea to launch cruise missiles. Most of the weapons it had tested in the past few months were ballistic missiles or long-range artillery shells.
Some experts have said that North Korean cruise missiles target US naval assets that would be reinforced in the event of an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
All of the recently tested missiles were short-range and did not pose a direct threat to the US mainland. A test of a missile capable of reaching the US homeland would end North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on major weapons tests and likely completely derail nuclear diplomacy with the US.
Some experts have said that North Korea likely used the latest weapons launches to bolster its striking capability against South Korea, which has been introducing US-made stealth F-35 warplanes and other sophisticated conventional weapons systems in the past few years.
Others have said that the latest weapons tests were also aimed at shoring up internal unity in the face of US-led sanctions and the pandemic.
North Korea has repeatedly said that there has been no coronavirus outbreak on its soil.
However, many foreign experts are skeptical of that claim and have warned that a coronavirus outbreak in the North could become a humanitarian disaster because of the country’s chronic lack of medical supplies and fragile healthcare infrastructure.
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