N Korea fires two ballistic missiles off east coast, S Korea says
Missile launches come four days after North Korea and South Korea exchanged warning shots off the west coast.
North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and national media said.
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches from the Tongchon area in Kangwon Province,” South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday.
South Korea’s military is “maintaining a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the United States”, the Joint Chief said in a text message sent to reporters, according to Yonhap.
No other details, including the projectiles’ flight range, were immediately available.
The Tongchon launch site is located some 60 kms (37 miles) from the inter-Korean border. The area was apparently closer to South Korean territory than any other launch location that North Korea has used so far this year.
The launch on Friday also comes on the final day of South Korea’s annual 12-day “Hoguk” military exercises, which also involved an unspecified number of US troops this year.
Next week, South Korean and US forces are also preparing to stage major combined air drills, named “Vigilant Storm”, Yonhap reported.
Such military drills infuriate Pyongyang, which sees them as rehearsals for invasion and justifies its blitz of missile launches as necessary “countermeasures”.
(LEAD) N. Korea fires 2 short-range ballistic missiles toward East Sea: S. Korean military
— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) October 28, 2022
Seoul and Washington have repeatedly warned that Pyongyang could be close to testing an atomic bomb for the first time since 2017, after a flurry of ballistic missile launches.
Leader Kim Jong Un has made developing tactical nukes — smaller, battlefield-ready weapons — a priority and Seoul recently warned North Korea could be preparing to conduct multiple consecutive nuclear tests as part of this drive.
On Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said North Korea was poised to conduct another nuclear test, which would be its seventh.
“It appears they have already completed preparations for a seventh nuclear test,” he told parliament Tuesday during a budget speech.
On Wednesday, the United States, South Korea and Japan warned that an “unparalleled” response would be warranted if North Korea tests a nuclear weapon.
