North Korea fired two more short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) early Thursday, just two days after launching its longest-flying ballistic missile over Japan, angering regional leaders and the international community.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the SRBMs were launched between 6:01 a.m. and 6:23 a.m. from North Korea’s Samcheok area in Pyongyang into the East Sea. Their flight distance was between 350 to 800 kilometers, and their altitude between 60 and 80 kilometers.
The missile launch marks the sixth in 12 days and comes one day after the USS Ronald Reagan supercarrier was rerouted back to the Korean Peninsula after last week’s naval drills, which were part of maneuvers to pressure North Korea against additional provocations.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the volley of missile fire in recent days was “absolutely unacceptable.”
The latest missile likely flew in an “irregular trajectory,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said on Thursday, reiterating that “these actions by North Korea are a threat to peace and security of [Japan], [the] region and the international community.”
Prime Minister Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol are to speak by phone later Thursday.
North Korea breaks silence
In its first commentary since firing a ballistic missile over Japan, North Korea indicated the missile launch was a reaction to recent moves by the United States, accusing the U.S. of “posing a serious threat to stability” in the region by redeploying the USS Ronald Reagan to the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a brief statement, carried by North Korean state media, on Thursday “strongly condemning” the U.S. and some of its “satellites” for “unwarrantedly referring [North Korea] to the U.N. Security Council [for] the just counteraction measures of the Korean People’s Army against South Korea-U.S. joint drills escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula.”
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier had returned to South Korea about 8 p.m. Wednesday, President Yoon told reporters. The rare decision to redeploy the carrier was one jointly made by the U.S. and South Korean militaries after North Korea’s provocative missile test on Tuesday, JCS said.
While the presence of supercarriers like the USS Ronald Reagan in the past had struck fear in Pyongyang, North Korea has become emboldened.
That North Korea last week fired ballistic missiles into the East Sea while a major naval exercise featuring a U.S. supercarrier was going on is without precedent, points out Park Won-gon, North Korean Studies professor at Ewha Womans University.
“The international environment and world politics right now is very favorable to North Korea, and North Korea has not missed this chance to develop their nuclear weapon,” Park said. “And their final goal, of course, is to be recognized by the international community as a de facto nuclear weapons state.”
Source: Voice of America