North Korea has test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles in another show of force. This comes a day after the United States and South Korea began military drills.
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missiles launched on Tuesday, 14 March 2023, from the southwestern coastal town of Jangyon, flew across North Korea before landing in the sea off that country’s east coast. Both missiles traveled about 620 kilometers (385 miles).
The reported flight distances suggest that the missiles targeted South Korea, which hosts about 28,000 U.S. troops. South Korea’s military called the launches “a grave provocation” that undermines stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command iterated that Tuesday’s launches do not pose an immediate threat to its allies. However, it said that the North’s recent tests highlight the “destabilizing impact” of the North’s unlawful weapons programs and that the U.S. security commitment to South Korea and Japan remains “ironclad.”
Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida informed reporters that officials were still gathering details of the North Korean launches and there were no immediate reports of damage in Japanese waters.
Pyongyang could further escalate its weapons tests over the coming days in a tit-for-tat response to the allies’ military drills, which are planned to run until March 23, 2023.
Tuesday’s launches were the North’s second weapons test this week. On Monday, March 13, 2023, North Korea disclosed that it had test-fired two cruise missiles from a submarine the previous day. It implied that the cruise missiles were being developed to carry nuclear warheads.
Submarine-launched missile systems are harder to detect and would provide the North retaliatory second attack capability. However, experts say that it would take years, extensive resources and major technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned nation to build a fleet of submarines that could travel quietly and reliably execute strikes.
U.S. National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan averred on Monday that North Korea has been refining its submarine-launch capabilities since its first test in 2016, and the United States was studying Sunday’s launches to assess the North’s capabilities.
“But of course, we’re not going to let any steps North Korea takes deter us or constrain us from the actions that we feel are necessary to safeguard stability on the Korean Peninsula.”
Jake Sullivan
The U.S.-South Korean joint exercises that started on Monday, March 13, 2023 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 springtime exercises that were last held in 2018, South Korean defense officials disclosed.
U.S.-South Korea Drills Will Proceed As Planned
Jeon Ha Gyu, Spokesperson of South Korea’s Defense Ministry, has pronounced that the U.S.-South Korea drills will proceed normally, regardless of whether “North Korea tries to disrupt them with provocations like missile launches.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson, Ned Price emphasized on Monday that the United States has made clear that it harbors no hostile intent toward North Korea and that the allies’ longstanding exercises are “purely defensive in nature.”
Holding telephone talks for the second consecutive day to discuss the North Korean launches, Chief South Korean and U.S. nuclear envoys stressed on Tuesday that the North would face “clear consequences” for its actions, without specifying what those would be.
According to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry, the envoys said that the allies will maintain “firm readiness” to respond to any kind of North Korean provocation.
Later this week, South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol is scheduled to visit Tokyo for a summit with Kishida, where the North Korean threat is expected to be a major topic.
The shared urgency over security is pushing Seoul and Tokyo closer together following years of disputes stemming from Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II.
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