SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired three short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters on Saturday in its latest weapons show, a day after rival South Korea launched a missile related to its efforts to build space surveillance. to better monitor the North.
Tensions between the rival Koreas escalated this week as South Korea accused North Korea of flying five drones across the tense border for the first time in five years and responded by sending its own drones to the North.
South Korea’s Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that they detected the three launches from an inland area south of the northern capital Pyongyang on Saturday morning. The three missiles are said to have traveled about 350 kilometers (220 miles) before landing in the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan. The estimated range suggests the missiles tested could hit South Korea.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launches “a serious provocation” that undermines international peace. He said South Korea maintains its readiness to “overwhelmingly” deter any provocation from North Korea.
AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
The US Indo-Pacific Command said the launches highlight the “destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s illicit weapons programs and that US commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan “certainly remain”. On Saturday, Japan’s Defense Ministry also reported suspected ballistic missile launches by North Korea.
South Korea’s military launched warplanes and helicopters on Monday, but failed to shoot down any of the North Korean drones before they either returned home or disappeared from South Korean radar. One of the North Korean drones traveled as far as Seoul, sparking security unrest among many people in the South.
South Korea still flew three of its surveillance drones across the border on Monday in an unusual move. South Korea held large-scale military drills on Thursday to simulate shooting down drones.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called for strengthening his country’s air defense network and vowed to deal sternly with North Korea’s provocations.
Since taking office in May, Yoon’s government has expanded regular military exercises with the United States in the face of growing North Korean nuclear threats. North Korea called the drills an invasion test and said its recent missile tests were its response. But some experts say North Korea is using the training between South Korea and the United States as a pretext to modernize its arsenal and increase its influence in future relations with the United States.
Before Saturday’s launches, North Korea had already tested more than 70 missiles this year. Many of them were nuclear weapons designed to attack the continental United States and its allies South Korea and Japan.
Later on Saturday, senior diplomats from South Korea, Japan and the United States jointly denounced the North’s launches after a phone call. They agreed to strengthen deterrence against North Korea and work together to achieve the North’s denuclearization, according to the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministries.
South Korea on Friday test-launched a solid-fuel rocket, a type of space launch vehicle it plans to use to put its first spy satellite into orbit within the next few years.
Defense officials said it was a test after the country’s first successful launch of a solid-fuel missile in March. The unannounced launch sparked a brief public scare over a UFO sighting or a North Korean missile.
AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
North Korea is also pushing to acquire its first military surveillance satellite. Earlier this month, it said it used two old rockets as space launch vehicles to test a camera and other systems needed for a spy satellite, and later released low-resolution satellite photos showing South Korean cities.
Some South Korean experts said satellite images from North Korea were too crude for military reconnaissance purposes and that the North Korean missile launches were likely a disguised test of missile technology. Furious at such an assessment, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, hurled crude insults at unidentified South Korean experts. He also dismissed doubts about North Korea’s ICBM technology and threatened to conduct a full ICBM test.
This week, North Korea is attending a major ruling party meeting in Pyongyang to review previous policies and political goals for 2023. It is highly unusual for North Korea to test a missile at a key meeting.
Marking the end of the Workers’ Party plenary session, northern state media reported on Saturday that its powerful Politburo had decided to finalize the plenary session’s draft resolution.
Some observers said North Korea could release details of Sunday’s meeting, which would prompt Kim Jong Un to pledge to expand his nuclear arsenal and introduce sophisticated weapons in the name of confronting what he calls hostility from the states.
Associated Press writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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