According to reports, North Korea has fired an “unspecified ballistic missile” towards the Sea of Japan after the North threatened to launch “fiercer” military responses to the U.S. bolstering its security commitment to its allies South Korea and Japan.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was said to have given communication of Pyongyang had launched a ballistic missile, soon after Japanese authorities also noted a suspected ballistic missile launch.
Also, before that, North Korea had fired dozens of missiles it said were in response to a major combined aerial military exercise conducted by the United States and South Korea.
The missile fired from the North’s eastern coastal Wonsan area at 10:48 a.m. landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to its neighbours. After detecting the launch, South Korean, U.S. and Japanese militaries quickly condemned the launch which they say threatens stability in the region.
It should be remembered that Earlier Thursday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned that a recent U.S.-South Korea-Japan summit accord on the North would leave tensions on the Korean Peninsula “more unpredictable.”
“The keener the U.S. is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, the fiercer (North Korea’s) military counteraction will be, in direct proportion to it,” Choe said. “It will pose a more serious, realistic and inevitable threat to the U.S. and its vassal forces.”
There have been concerns that North Korea might conduct its first nuclear test in five years as its next major step toward bolstering its military capability against the United States and its allies.
