North Korea has fired what appears to be a long-range ballistic missile from the Pyongyang area to waters off its east coast, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. This launch marks a potential new round of confrontation with Seoul and Washington. The missile was launched at 9:59 a.m. local time and fell into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, at 11:15 a.m., as reported by Japan’s Coast Guard, citing the Ministry of Defense. The Coast Guard has warned ships in the fall area to exercise caution and look out for further information.
The flight time of the missile, if confirmed, would be similar to those of North Korean missiles tested in March and April of this year. Both of those tests involved intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), weapons with the range to hit the continental United States. This latest launch comes after Pyongyang threatened to shoot down US military reconnaissance planes that fly over nearby waters in the East Sea. Kim Yo Jong, a senior North Korean official and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accused a US spy plane of entering the North’s exclusive economic zone at least eight times on Monday, according to a statement from North Korea’s state news agency KCNA.
The missile launch and fiery rhetoric, while not unusual for Pyongyang, come amid heightened tensions as Washington and Seoul ramp up their defense cooperation and the leaders of South Korea, Japan, and the United States are in Lithuania for a NATO summit, where North Korea was on the agenda. A communique from the NATO meeting on Tuesday urged North Korea to abandon its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, which are in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions banning them. The communique also called on North Korea to accept the repeated offers of dialogue put forward by all parties concerned, including Japan, the United States, and the Republic of Korea. However, North Korea has shown no signs of willingness to engage in negotiations with Washington or Seoul.
According to experts, Kim Yo Jong’s bellicose statement against US surveillance aircraft is part of a North Korean pattern of inflating external threats to rally domestic support and justify weapons tests. Pyongyang also times its shows of force to disrupt what it perceives as diplomatic coordination against it, in this case, South Korea and Japan’s leaders meeting during the NATO summit. Last month, tens of thousands of North Koreans marched in anti-US rallies in Pyongyang, denouncing the US as the “Destroyer of peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula” and warning of nuclear war.
Meanwhile, South Korea, the United States, and Japan have been holding joint and trilateral military exercises aimed at deterring any North Korean military threat. This is an ongoing and developing story that will be updated as more information becomes available.
Original Story at www.cnn.com – 2023-07-12 02:19:00
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