North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Thursday, Seoul’s military said, in apparent protest over a recent series of massive South Korea-US live-fire drills that ended this week.
Shortly before the launch, a spokesperson for the North’s defence ministry issued a statement denouncing what it called the “provocative and irresponsible” drills, Yonhap news agency reported.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches from the Sunan area in Pyongyang between 7:25 p.m. and 7:37 p.m., and the missiles flew some 780 km each before splashing into the water.
“The intelligence authorities of South Korea and the United States are conducting a comprehensive assessment regarding (the missiles’) specifics and the possibility of additional provocations,” the JCS said in a text message to reporters.
The JCS urged the North to immediately stop such missile launches, calling them “acts of significant provocation” that not only undermine peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, but also in the international community.
“In close coordination with the US, our military will maintain a firm readiness posture based on its capabilities to respond overwhelmingly to any provocations,” it said.
The allies ended the fifth and last round of the Combined Joint Live-Fire Exercise, the first of its kind in six years, at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, just 25 km south of the inter-Korean border, on Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of the bilateral alliance.
More than 610 military assets were mobilised for the drills, including F-35A fighters and K9 self-propelled howitzers from the South Korean side, and F-16 fighter jets and Gray Eagle drones from the US side.
The North’s defence ministry accused the allies of escalating tensions, saying the drills warrant its “inevitable” response.
“Our army strongly denounces the provocative and irresponsible moves of the puppet military authorities escalating the military tension in the region despite its repeated warnings and warns them solemnly,” the spokesperson said in the statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“Our armed forces will fully counter any form of demonstrative moves and provocation of the enemies,” the official added.
The latest launch also came as the South Korean military has been conducting an operation to salvage the wreckage of an ill-fated North Korean space rocket in the Yellow Sea.
On May 31, the North fired what it claimed to be a satellite-carrying rocket, but it crashed into the sea due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine, according to the North’s state media.
The North last conducted a missile launch on April 13. It claimed to have fired a new solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile.
Meanwhile, top nuclear envoys from South Korea, the US and Japan had phone talks to discuss ways to deal with the North’s provocation, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.
In the talks, Seoul’s chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Gunn, and his US and Japanese counterparts, Sung Kim and Takehiro Funakoshi, respectively, denounced Pyongyang’s missile launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and a threat to global peace and security.
They also agreed to take strong counteractions against North Korea’s provocations based on their strong security alliance.
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