A woman watches television broadcasting a news story about North Korea’s launch of three missiles. Photo Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
North Korea on Wednesday held a new missile launch to provoke discontent of the United States, Japan and South Korea, countries that not only condemned the procedure but also reported that one of the three projectiles used was intercontinentali.e., long-range, which violates various international laws.
This military trial took place just after the end of a tour made by US president Joe Biden, through South Korea and Japan, a visit marked by the threat of a nuclear test by the Pyongyang regime. Again, he did nothing but increase the record number of trials of this type, which will reach 17 in 2022.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated that the gunfire originated in the Sunan area, in Pyongyang’s capital, where a large part of the communist country’s last weapons tests were conducted.
The United States condemned this repeated act by North Korea and called on Pyongyang to choose the path of dialogue. “The United States condemns the DPRK’s multiple launches of ballistic missiles,” an acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday night, using the Asian country’s official name.
“We call on the DPRK to avoid further provocations and engage in sustained and substantive dialogue,” he added.
The White House called on North Korea to “avoid further provocations.” Photo Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
After this new test, South Korea and the United States fired “surface-to-surface missiles” in response to North Korea’s “alleged ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) and missile provocations, the Seoul military said.
The South Korean government, after a meeting of the National Security Council, assured that the “successful” launch of these projectiles was “an illegal action in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”
South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, described these shots from Pyongyang as “a serious provocation that threatens peace on the Korean peninsula and in the international community.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called it “a serious provocation.” Photo Ahn Jung-won/Yonhap by AP
Yoon, who was sworn into office this month, has upheld strict policy on communist neighbors in the north after five years of unsuccessful diplomacy by his predecessor Moon Jae-in.
During their stay in Seoul, Biden and Yoon agreed to “start talks with the aim of expanding the scope and scope of joint training and military training” in the face of the “threat posed” by North Korea.
Before leaving the South Korean capital on Sunday for Japan, from where he returned to Washington on Tuesday, Biden said the United States was “ready for whatever North Korea would do.”
And when asked if he had a message for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he responded with a laconic message: “Hello. Full stop.”
For their part, the Japanese authorities, who also saw the shots, joined in condemning the trial.
“A clearly provocative action such as the launch of missiles shortly after the U.S. meeting in Japan and South Korea, and in the Quad countries, cannot be tolerated,” Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu said. Matsuno at a news conference.
A “highly unfortunate” situation
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was “extremely regrettable” that Pyongyang was using its resources for developing weapons instead of treating the pandemic and improving people’s lives. the population.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it “detected around 06:00 (21:00 GMT), 06:37 and 06:42 ballistic missile fire from the Sunan area” towards the Sea of Japan, in its east coast.
“The first ballistic missile (called ICBM) has a range of approximately 360 kilometers and a height of 540 kilometers,” he said.
The second projectile “disappeared at an altitude of 20 km” and the third traveled nearly 760 km at an altitude of about 60 km, it added.
In recent months, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has repeatedly advocated speeding up his program to modernize his military and nuclear-armed arsenal.
Despite the recent outbreak of covid-19 in poor and isolated territory, new satellite images have shown that North Korea has continued construction of a nuclear reactor.
Both South Korea and the United States recently warned that the communist country, which is subject to international sanctions for its weapons and nuclear program, is preparing a new atomic test.
With information from EFE and AFP
DB
Source: Clarin
