North Korea fired two ballistic missiles yesterday as it claimed its recent blitz of sanctions-busting tests were necessary countermeasures against joint military drills by the US and South Korea.
As the UN Security Council met to discuss Pyongyang’s Tuesday launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, North Korea blamed Washington for “escalating the military tensions” on the Korean Peninsula.
The recent launches — six in less than two weeks — were “the just counteraction measures of the Korean People’s Army on South Korea-US joint drills,” the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have ramped up joint military drills in recent weeks, including large-scale naval maneuvers and anti-submarine exercises. The US would redeploy the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan to waters east of South Korea for a second visit in less than a month, Seoul said on Wednesday.
The North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement carried by North Korean Central News Agency that this posed “a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
Early yesterday, South Korea’s military said it had detected two short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Samsok area in Pyongyang toward the East China Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
The first missile traveled 350km at a maximum altitude of about 80km, according to their analysis, with the second flying 800km at an altitude of 60km. It appears to be the first time North Korea has fired missiles from Samsok, a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff official told reporters, adding that they look like a “different type of short-range ballistic missiles” from previous launches.
Tokyo also confirmed the launches, with Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada telling reporters that it was important not to “overlook the significant improvement of [North Korea’s] missile technology.”
Pyongyang’s Tuesday firing of what officials and analysts said was a Hwasong-12 that likely traveled the longest horizontal distance of any North Korean test, prompted the US to call for the emergency Security Council meeting. At the meeting, North Korea’s longtime ally and economic benefactor Beijing also blamed Washington for provoking the spate of launches by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime.
Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Geng Shuang (耿爽) said North Korea’s recent launches were “closely related” to military exercises in the region conducted by the US and its allies.
Geng accused the US of “poisoning the regional security environment.”
The spate of launches is part of a record year of weapons tests by isolated North Korea, which Kim has declared an “irreversible” nuclear power, effectively ending the possibility of denuclearization talks.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield called for “strengthening” existing sanctions on North Korea, something China and Russia vetoed in May.
The council has been divided on responding to Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions for months, with Russia and China on the sympathetic side and the rest of the council pushing for punishment. Analysts say that Pyongyang has seized the opportunity of a stalemate at the UN to conduct ever more provocative weapons tests.
Officials in Seoul and Washington have been warning for months that Pyongyang would conduct another nuclear test, likely after the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party which starts on Oct. 16.
“At this point, for Kim to turn back and halt provocations would seem counterproductive to his interests, not to mention the amount of resources squandered to conduct these weapons tests,” RAND Corp analyst Soo Kim told Agence France-Presse.
“We are indeed in a cycle of weapons provocations. What’s left, essentially, is an ICBM test and potentially the long-awaited seventh nuclear test,” Soo Kim said.
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