SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern waters on Thursday, hours after the north threatened to launch “tougher” military responses to the U.S. to strengthen its security commitments to its allies South Korea and Japan strengthen.
The missile, which was launched at 10:48 a.m. from the eastern coastal region of Wonsan in the north, landed in the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, according to its neighbors. After spotting the launch, South Korean, US and Japanese militaries were quick to condemn the launch, which they say threatens stability in the region.
It was North Korea’s first ballistic missile to be launched in eight days and the latest in the spate of tests in recent months. North Korea previously said some of the tests are simulations of nuclear attacks on South Korean and US targets. Many experts say North Korea may eventually want to upgrade its nuclear capabilities in order to wring greater concessions from its rivals.
Earlier Thursday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned that a recent summit deal between the US, South Korea and Japan over the north would make tensions on the Korean peninsula “more unpredictable”.
Choe’s statement was North Korea’s first official response to US President Joe Biden’s trilateral summit with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Cambodia on Sunday. In their joint statement, the three leaders strongly condemned North Korea’s recent missile tests and agreed to work together to strengthen deterrence. Biden reiterated US commitments to defend South Korea and Japan with a full suite of capabilities, including their nuclear weapons.
“The more eagerly the US relies on the ‘enhanced offer of enhanced deterrence’ to its allies and the more it intensifies provocative and bluffing military activities on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, the more violent (North Korea’s) military counteraction will be direct its relationship thereto,” said Choe. “It will pose a more serious, realistic and inevitable threat to the US and its vassal forces.”
Choe did not say what steps North Korea might take, but said that “the US will be aware that they are playing, which they will certainly regret.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry later responded Thursday that the purpose of the trilateral summit was to coordinate a joint response to contain and deter North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile threats. Spokesman Moon Hong Sik told reporters that the security cooperation between Seoul, Washington and Tokyo is helping to solidify an expanded US deterrent to its allies.
The North Korean missile launched Thursday flew about 240 kilometers (150 miles) at a maximum altitude of 47 kilometers (29 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It called the launch “a serious provocation” that undermines peace and security on the Korean peninsula.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said repeated missile launches by North Korea threaten the peace and security of Japan, the region and international society. The US-Pacific Command said Thursday’s launch “highlights the destabilizing effects of (North Korea’s) illicit weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”
After the launch, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean and US military earlier Thursday conducted missile defense drills to verify a joint readiness for North Korean provocations. However, South Korean military officials declined to give further details about the drills, including whether they were already planned or arranged, after signs of an impending North Korean missile launch were spotted.
North Korea has steadfastly maintained that its recent weapons testing activities are legitimate military countermeasures to US-South Korean military exercises, which it sees as a practice to launch attacks on the North. Washington and Seoul have said their drills are defensive in nature.
In recent years, annual military training between Seoul and Washington has been scaled back or canceled to support now-dormant diplomacy with North Korea and protect against the COVID-19 pandemic. But in recent months, South Korean and US troops have expanded their regular drills and resumed trilateral training with Japan in response to North Korea’s push to expand its nuclear and missile arsenals.
In her statement on Thursday, Choe said, “The US and its supporters successively conducted large-scale war exercises for aggression, but they failed to contain North Korea’s overwhelming countermeasures.”
There have been concerns North Korea could conduct its first nuclear test in five years as the next major step in bolstering its military capabilities against the United States and its allies.
US and South Korean officials say North Korea has completed preparations to conduct a nuclear test blast at its remote test facility in the northeast. Some experts say the test, if conducted, would be used to develop nuclear warheads to be placed on short-range missiles capable of hitting key targets in South Korea, such as US military bases.
Thursday’s launch came a day after members of the Group of 20 leading economies wrapped up their summit in Indonesia. The summit was largely overshadowed by other issues such as Russia’s war on Ukraine, but Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol used their bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping to raise the issue of North Korea. The two had a trilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and discussed North Korea before traveling to Indonesia for the G-20 summit.
In their respective bilateral talks with Xi, Biden noted that all members of the international community have an interest in encouraging North Korea to act responsibly, while Yoon urged China to play a more active, constructive role in addressing North Korea’s nuclear threats.
China, the North’s last major ally and biggest source of aid, is suspected of avoiding full enforcement of United Nations sanctions on North Korea and sending clandestine aid to the North to help its impoverished neighbor stay afloat and continue as a bulwark against US influences to serve the Korean Peninsula.
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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.