North Korea has launched 8 short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan (called the East Sea in Korea), the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement, while it continues to analyze the launch.
The South Korean military said the shots were fired between 9:08 a.m. and 9:43 a.m. local time (0:08 a.m. and 0:43 a.m. GMT) from the Sunan area of the capital Pyongyang, according to the text.
The projectiles flew between 110 kilometers and 670 kilometers at an altitude of between 25 kilometers and 90 kilometers, at a speed of Mach 3 to 6, the JCS said.
“While our military strengthens vigilance against possible new launches, it maintains a fully prepared posture while closely cooperating with the United States,” the JCS said.
Sources with reserved information told the local Yonhap news agency that the missiles would have been launched “sporadically”, probably from a mobile launcher (TEL).
South Korea’s National Security Council has called a meeting in response to the North Korean weapons test, the third since President Yoon Suk-yeol came to power on May 10.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, In-cheol Won, shared the situation via videoconference with the commander in charge of the combined forces with the United States, Paul LaCamera, “and confirmed the combined defense capacity and readiness to immediately detect any provocation” North Korean, they revealed.
“North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches are a serious provocation that harms the peace and stability of not only the Korean peninsula, but also the international community, and we strongly condemn them and strongly urge them to stop immediately,” the official said. JCS through a statement.
Today’s is the eighteenth weapons test of these characteristics carried out by Pyongyang, which has a record number of tests so far this year, and comes after the May 25 test fired what is believed to have been an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and two short-range ballistic missiles.
That launch came just after US President Joe Biden concluded his first Asian tour in Japan, which also took him to South Korea, where the international agenda was focused on addressing Pyongyang’s weapons challenges.
The North Korean missile launches come at a time of particular tension between North Korea, its neighboring countries and also with the US, whose denuclearization negotiations with the regime have been stalled since 2019.
The South Korean and US governments have also been pointing to an imminent nuclear test in Pyongyang for weeks, which would have already completed preparations for it.
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