North Korea has launched an “unspecified ballistic missile,” the south’s military said on Friday, the latest in a flash of launches by Pyongyang, while Seoul warns Kim Jong Un is close to conducting another nuclear test.
“North Korea fires an unspecified ballistic missile at the East Sea,” the Seoul General Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of ??Japan.
No further details were given in the JCS statement.
With talks long stalled, tensions in the peninsula are at their highest in years, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month declared his country an “irreversible” nuclear power, effectively ending negotiations over its banned weapons programs .
On Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said the north was ready to conduct another nuclear test, which would be its seventh.
“It looks like they have already completed preparations for a seventh nuclear test,” he said during a budget speech in parliament on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the United States, Japan and South Korea said a North Korean nuclear test would warrant an “unprecedentedly strong response” and vowed unity between the regional security allies.
This month North Korea launched multiple barrages of artillery at a maritime “buffer zone” established in 2018 to ease tensions with the south at a time of ill-fated diplomacy.
It also announced that it had conducted so-called “tactical nuclear exercises” that simulated bombarding the South with nuclear missiles.
– “Provocations” –
The moves are part of a dramatic increase in what Seoul is calling “provocations” by the North this year, including conducting the longest-ever remote rocket launch, which flew over Japan and prompted rare evacuation alerts.
Seoul has also recently conducted live-fire drills, and the US has deployed a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region to conduct large-scale trilateral drills, also involving Tokyo.
Such drills infuriate Pyongyang, which sees them as rehearsals for an invasion and justifies its missile strikes as necessary “countermeasures.”
Seoul and Washington have repeatedly warned that Pyongyang may be on the verge of testing a nuclear bomb for the first time since 2017, following a spate of missile launches.
Kim has made the development of tactical nuclear weapons — smaller, battlefield-ready weapons — a priority, and Seoul recently warned the North could be preparing to conduct successive nuclear tests as part of that endeavour.
Analysts say Pyongyang’s confidence that the UN standstill will shield it from further sanctions has encouraged it to continue its weapons tests.
At a recent UN Security Council meeting to discuss the Pyongyang launch over Japan, North Korea’s longtime ally and economic benefactor China accused Washington of provoking the missile test spate.
The Security Council was divided for months as it responded to Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, with Russia and China standing on the sympathetic side and the rest of the council pushing for punishment.
