North Korea reportedly fired a suspected long-range missile from its capital toward the sea on Saturday, a day after threatening to take severe action against South Korea and the United States in response to their joint military exercises.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul reported that the ballistic missile was launched at approximately 5:22 p.m. from a place in Sunan, where the international airport of Pyongyang is located. It was not immediately specified where the weapon fell.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry vowed “unprecedented” action against its enemies on Friday, after South Korea and the United States announced a series of military exercises designed to strengthen their reaction to the North’s mounting threats.
Toshiro Ino, the vice minister of defense for Japan, stated that the missile was anticipated to have landed within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, approximately 200 kilometers west of Oshima island. Oshima is located off the western shore of Hokkaido’s northernmost main island.
“We are doing our utmost, working closely with the United States, to gather information, analyze it, and take appropriate vigilance and surveillance measures to protect our people’s lives and property,” he told reporters.
The launch was North Korea’s first known test since it conducted a short-range weapon test on January 1. It follows last week’s spectacular military show in Pyongyang, where troops displayed more than a dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles while Kim Jong Un beamed from a balcony.
The extraordinary quantity of missiles demonstrated a continuing of the buildup of his country’s military capabilities despite limited finances, as discussions with the United States continue deadlocked.
These rockets incorporated a new mechanism that, according to experts, may be related to the North’s claimed desire to acquire a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. Existing North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as the Hwasong-17, utilize liquid propellants that require pre-launch injections and cannot remain fueled for extended periods. A solid-fuel substitute would require less time to prepare and be easier to transport on vehicles, reducing the likelihood of being noticed.
It was initially unclear whether the launch on Saturday utilized a solid-fuel system.
More than seventy ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles with the capacity to reach the U.S. mainland, were launched in North Korea’s most recent year of weapons tests. In reaction to the partners’ resumption of a large-scale joint military exercise that had been scaled back for years, the North conducted a number of launches it described as mock nuclear assaults against South Korean and US targets.
North Korea’s missile launches have been punctuated by threats of preemptive nuclear attacks against South Korea or the United States in response to a variety of scenarios that, in its view, threaten its authority.
In 2023, Kim called for a “exponential increase” in the country’s nuclear warheads, mass manufacture of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting “enemy” South Korea, and the development of more sophisticated ICBMs.
The North Korean statement released on Friday accused Washington and Seoul of organizing more than 20 rounds of military drills this year, including large-scale field exercises, and referred to its adversaries as “the archcriminals deliberately undermining regional stability.”
The declaration was made just hours after officials from South Korea’s Defense Ministry informed lawmakers that Seoul and Washington will conduct an annual computer-simulated combined military exercise in mid-March. South Korea’s deputy minister of national defense policy, Heo Tae-keun, stated that the 11-day training would incorporate North Korea’s nuclear threats as well as unnamed lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Mid-March, according to Heo, the two nations will also undertake joint field exercises that will be larger than those done in recent years.
South Korea and the United States will conduct a one-day tabletop exercise at the Pentagon the following week in preparation for North Korea’s potential use of nuclear weapons.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry stated that the exercise, slated for Wednesday, will draw up various scenarios in which North Korea employs nuclear weapons, investigate how to respond militarily to them, and develop crisis management measures.
North Korea has generally seen U.S.-South Korea military exercises as preparations for a potential invasion, but the partners believe their drills are defensive in nature.
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