N.Korea, S.Korea exchange missiles
North Korea launched a ballistic missile that landed less than 60 kilometers off South Korea’s coast on Wednesday prompting South Korea to issue rare air raid warnings and launch missiles in protest.
The missile landed outside of South Korea’s territorial waters, but south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a disputed inter-Korean maritime border in what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called an “effective act of territorial encroachment.”
South Korean warplanes fired three air-to-ground missiles into the sea north across the NLL in response, the South’s military said.
The South’s launches came after Yoon’s office vowed a “swift and firm response” so North Korea “pays the price for provocation”.
The launches came just hours after Pyongyang demanded that the United States and South Korea stop large-scale military exercises, saying such “military rashness and provocation can be no longer tolerated.”
Pak Jong Chon, secretary of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a statement on Wednesday that the number of warplanes involved in Vigilant Storm proved the exercise was “aggressive and provocative” and specifically targeted North Korea.
“The hostile forces’ inordinate moves for military confrontation have created a grave situation on the Korean peninsula,” Pak said in a statement carried out by the state news agency KCNA.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price responded to North Korea’s warnings about a “powerful” response to the drills by saying that Pyongyang appeared to be “reaching for another pretext for provocations it has already undertaken, potentially for provocations that it might be planning to take in the coming days or coming weeks.”
In a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Foreign Minister Park Jin called the North Korean missile launch “unprecedented” and a “grave act of military provocation”.
The two officials condemned the launch and agreed to cooperate against North Korean threats, Park’s office said in a statement.
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Japan defense minister Yasukazu Hamada said the government believed at least two ballistic missiles had been launched from North Korea, one flying east and another southeast.
“Our military can never tolerate this kind of North Korea’s provocative act, and will strictly and firmly respond under close South Korea-U.S. cooperation,” JCS said in a news release.
North Korea’s actions threaten the peace and stability of Japan, the wider region, as well as the broader international community, and are utterly unacceptable, Hamada said.
“North Korea has been repeatedly launching missiles at an unprecedented rate, in new ways that we have not seen before,” he said.
Japan has lodged a complaint and protested the actions via diplomatic channels in Beijing, Hamada added.
Zainab Sa’id
