NK fires missiles off Japanese coast
Print Edition
NORTH Korea yesterday fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off northwest Japan, just days after Pyongyang promised retaliation over American-South Korean military drills it sees as a preparation for war.
South Korea’s military said the missiles were unlikely to have been intercontinental ballistic missiles, which can reach the United States.
The missiles flew on average 1,000 kilometers and reached a height of 260km. Some of the missiles landed in waters as close as 300km from Japan’s northwest coast, Japan’s defense minister Tomomi Inada said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said “strong protests” had been lodged with nuclear-armed North Korea, which has carried out a series of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of United Nations resolutions.
South Korea’s acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn condemned the launches as a direct challenge to the international community and said Seoul would swiftly deploy a US anti-missile defense system despite objections from China.
The North Korean missiles were launched from the Tongchang-ri region near North Korea’s border with China, said South Korean military spokesman Roh Jae-cheon.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had noted North Korea’s latest action. “All sides should exercise restraint and not do anything to irritate each other to worsen regional tensions,” Geng said, referring to both the missile launch and US-South Korean military exercises.
North Korea threatened to take “strong retaliatory measures” after South Korea and the US began annual joint military drills on Wednesday that test their defensive readiness against possible aggression from North Korea.
North Korea criticizes the annual drills and has previously conducted missile launches to coincide with the exercises.
North Korea test-fired a new type of missile into the sea early last month, and has said it would continue to launch new strategic weapons.
Last month’s test was the first since the election of US President Donald Trump, who has vowed to rein in North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un.
Trump’s national security deputies have reviewed in recent meetings a range of options to counter North Korea’s missile threat, The New York Times reported. Options include direct missile strikes on North Korea’s launch sites and the possibility of reintroducing nuclear weapons to South Korea, the paper said.
Those options would soon be presented to Trump and his top national security aides, the report said, quoting US administration officials.
The US withdrew nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991 before the rival Koreas signed a declaration on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has since walked away from the agreement, citing the threat of invasion by the US.
“The claim that we should redeploy nuclear weapons here, 20 years after they were withdrawn, is total nonsense,” said Woo Sang-ho, floor leader of South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party.
The US has about 28,500 troops and equipment stationed in South Korea, and plans to roll out the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile defence system by the end of the year.
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