North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Wednesday toward the sea off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast, South Korean and Japanese authorities said, days ahead of major joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington long denounced by Pyongyang.
The missile was launched from the Wonsan area on North Korea’s east coast at around 6am (2100 GMT Tuesday), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, six days after North Korea fired another ballistic missile from the same area.
The launch comes ahead of South Korean and United States military drills, dubbed Ulchi Freedom Shield, scheduled for August 17 to 27, aimed at countering Pyongyang’s evolving nuclear and weapons capabilities.
Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said the launch was likely part of North Korea’s existing weapons development schedule, but the timing could also have been selected to send a message ahead of the US-South Korean exercises.
Hong said that even if North Korea was just trying out a weapon they still had to make a decision about when to do it and that is a political thing.
Korean people in charge said that North Korea also shot a ballistic missile from Wonsan on August 6 but North Korea did not talk about it in their media. Hong said that test might not have worked like North Korea wanted it to.
North Korea has been doing a lot of tests this year like range ballistic missiles and artillery rockets and other weapons they use in battles.
The test, on Wednesday was the time North Korea has shot a ballistic missile this year according to what South Korea thinks.
Korean and Japanese defence people said the missile went about 700 km. The Joint Chiefs of Staff did not say what kind of missile it was on Wednesday. They are still looking at the details.
This means we do not know what type of missile it was. Some people think it could be a short-range missile because it went between 300 km and 1,000 km.
Hong thinks the missile might be a missile because of how far it went and where it was launched from. It could also be a missile launched from a submarine.
There is no word from Pyongyang, about the launch yet.
Condemnation and rising tensions
South Korea and Japan are not happy about the launch. They do not like it all.
Japan told North Korea that they are very upset. Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said this to reporters. He said Japan lodged a protest with North Korea through diplomatic channels at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Japan strongly condemned the action.
On Tuesday Korean state media said some bad things, about Japans latest defence white paper. They said Japan is trying to become more powerful. Korean state media said Tokyo is using a bad picture of Pyongyang to say they need more arms.
South Koreas Office of National Security had a meeting. They talked about North Koreas ballistic-missile launches. This happened after the August 6 firing. South Koreas Office of National Security is worried. They want Pyongyang to stop doing things that violate United Nations Security Council resolutions. They want North Korea to halt these provocations.
South Koreas military is ready to respond strongly to any problem that comes up. They are working with the United States to defend themselves.
The United States military in the Pacific area is talking to its friends and other countries about what’s going on. They do not think that the latest missile launch is a danger to the United States or its friends now.
On Tuesday the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia used missiles from North Korea when they attacked a steel factory in the city of Zaporizhzhia. This attack killed seven workers. Russia and North Korea and the United States and South Korea are all involved in this situation. The missile launch by North Korea is a deal, for South Korea and the United States.
