North Korea tested two short-range ballistic missiles in another show of force on Tuesday, a day after the United States and South Korea began military exercises that Pyongyang views as an invasion drill.
The missiles launched from the southwestern coastal city of Jangyon flew across North Korea before landing in the sea off the country’s east coast, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. He said both missiles traveled about 620 kilometers (385 miles).
Reported flight distances suggest the missiles are aimed at South Korea, which is home to some 28,000 US troops. The South Korean military called the launches “a serious provocation” that undermines stability on the Korean peninsula.
The US Indo-Pacific Command said Tuesday’s launches do not pose an immediate threat to its allies. But he said recent North Korean tests highlight the “destabilizing impact” of the North’s illegal weapons programs and that the US security commitment to South Korea and Japan remains “iron.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters officials were still gathering details of the North Korean launches and there were no immediate reports of damage in Japanese waters.
Pyongyang could further intensify its weapons tests in the coming days in a tit-for-tat response to allied military exercises, which are scheduled to run until March 23. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready. to repel what he called “frantic moves to prepare for war” by his country’s rivals.
Concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program have risen sharply after North Korea tested more than 70 missiles in 2022, many of them nuclear-capable weapons, and openly threatened to use them in potential conflicts with the United States and South Korea. .
North Korea appears to be using long-stalled talks with Washington and the sprawling US-South Korean drills as an opportunity to expand its weapons arsenals to increase its leverage in future dealings with the United States.
Threats from North Korea, coupled with China’s growing assertiveness, have pushed the US to seek to strengthen its alliances with South Korea and Japan. But some experts say that a solidified cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo could prompt Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow to strengthen their own trilateral ties.
China and Russia, embroiled in separate confrontations with the US, have repeatedly blocked attempts by the US and its allies to tighten UN sanctions against North Korea.
Tuesday’s launches were the North’s second weapons test this week. On Monday, North Korea said it had tested two cruise missiles from a submarine the previous day. It implied that cruise missiles were being developed to carry nuclear warheads, though outside experts debate whether Pyongyang possesses operational nuclear-armed missiles.
Submarine-launched missile systems are harder to detect and would provide the North with a second retaliatory strike capability. But experts say it would take years, vast resources and vast technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned nation to build a fleet of submarines that can travel silently and reliably execute attacks.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that North Korea has been honing its submarine launch capabilities since its first test in 2016, and that the United States was studying Sunday’s launches to assess the capabilities. Northern capabilities.
“But, of course, we are not going to allow any steps North Korea takes to deter or limit us from the actions we deem necessary to safeguard stability on the Korean peninsula,” Sullivan said.
The joint US-South Korean exercises that began Monday include computer simulations involving North Korean aggression and other security scenarios and field exercises. The field exercises would return to the scale of the allies’ biggest spring exercises that were last held in 2018, according to South Korean defense officials.
The two countries have been expanding their drills as nuclear threats from North Korea increase.
The US and South Korean drills will proceed as normal, regardless of whether “North Korea tries to disrupt them with provocations such as missile launches,” Jeon Ha Gyu, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said on Tuesday. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that the United States has made it clear that it harbors no hostile intentions toward North Korea and that the allies’ longstanding exercises are “purely defensive in nature.” ”.
In telephone conversations for the second day in a row to discuss North Korea’s launches, the top nuclear envoys for South Korea and the United States stressed Tuesday that North Korea would face “clear consequences” for its actions, without specifying what they would be. They said the allies will maintain a “firm readiness” to respond to any kind of provocation from North Korea, according to the Seoul Foreign Ministry.
Later this week, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit Tokyo for a summit with Kishida, where the North Korean threat is expected to be a major issue. A shared urgency for security is bringing Seoul and Tokyo closer after years of disputes stemming from Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula before the end of World War II.
