2023-07-19 01:56:25
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles at sea, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, hours after a US nuclear-armed submarine made a stopover in South Korea, the first since forty years.
The launch was reported by South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), according to Yonhap, which said the missiles were fired early Wednesday from Sunan area in Pyongyang and traveled about 550 kilometers before sinking into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
The JCS condemned the shootings, calling them “significant acts of provocation” and a flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The Japanese Ministry of Defense also recorded the shots. “We are analyzing the details, but believe they fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone east of the Korean Peninsula,” he said in a tweet.
One week after an intercontinental missile launch
The firings are the latest in a series of missile tests by Pyongyang and come as Seoul and Washington step up defense cooperation amid escalating tensions with the North.
Americans and South Koreans held the first meeting of the nuclear advisory group in Seoul on Tuesday and announced that an American nuclear submarine was calling at the port of Busan (south), a first since 1981.
The launches come less than a week after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the firing of the country’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the solid-fuel Hwasong-18.
Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul are at an impasse, with Kim Jong Un calling for accelerated development of weapons, including tactical nuclear weapons. In response, Seoul and Washington have stepped up their defense cooperation, holding major joint military exercises.
The shootings also come as Washington confirmed on Tuesday that an American soldier was likely captured by North Korean soldiers after crossing the heavily guarded border between the two Koreas.
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