Days after Pyongyang threatened to shoot down US spy planes that violated its airspace, North Korea fired a long-range ballistic missile, Seoul’s military said Wednesday.
The South Korean military “detected what is presumed to be a long-range ballistic missile fired from the Pyongyang area around 10 a.m. toward the East Sea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. South Korean, using the Korean name for the Sea of ??Japan.
“The ballistic missile was fired on an upward trajectory and traveled 1,000 kilometers before falling back into the East Sea,” the same source said. An upward trajectory involves firing a missile upwards, a method Pyongyang has previously said it uses in some weapons tests to avoid flying over neighboring countries.
The launch “is a serious provocation that undermines the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula” and violates United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang, the general staff said, calling on North Korea to put an end to such actions.
The United States “strongly condemned” the firing, “in flagrant violation of several United Nations Security Council resolutions”, according to a statement from a spokesperson for the United States National Security Council, attached to the White House. .
“It unnecessarily stokes tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” added Adam Hodge.
Experts say the flight time of about 70 minutes is similar to some of North Korea’s previous intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
In April, Pyongyang fired one of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Hwasong-18, and in February launched the Hwasong-15, which traveled a similar distance of 989 kilometers.
“Given the elements we have at this stage, it is 90% certain that this is an intercontinental ballistic missile launch,” Choi Gi-il, a professor of military studies, told AFP. at Sangji University.
He added that it could also be an attempt by North Korea to retest its satellite launch technology to prepare for another attempt to put a spy satellite into orbit, after the failure from a launch in May.
Relations are at an all-time low between the two Koreas. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called his country’s nuclear power status “irreversible” last year and called for increased development of armaments, including tactical nuclear weapons.
In response, Seoul and Washington pledged that Pyongyang would face a nuclear retaliation and the “end” of its current government if it decided to use atomic weapons against them.
This year, North Korea has conducted a series of weapons tests despite sanctions, including testing its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
On Monday, North Korea threatened to shoot down US spy planes that violate its airspace, and condemned Washington’s plan to deploy a ballistic missile submarine near the Korean peninsula.
According to a spokesperson for the North Korean Ministry of Defense, the United States has “intensified its espionage activities beyond wartime levels”, referring to American spy planes which carried out several flights in July, described as “provocateurs”, over eight consecutive days.
A reconnaissance aircraft, the same source said, also “repeatedly” entered North Korea’s airspace over the Sea of ??Japan.
In a statement quoted by the state news agency KCNA, the spokesperson warned of the risk of “accident” that this type of action could have caused, such as the “fall of the United States Air Force strategic reconnaissance aircraft” in the Sea of ??Japan.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s influential sister, Kim Yo-jong, said a US spy plane violated the country’s airspace twice on Monday morning, according to a separate statement.
Kim Yo-jong said Pyongyang would not respond directly to US reconnaissance activities outside the country’s exclusive economic zone, but would instead take “decisive action” if the US military crossed its military demarcation line maritime.
In response to North Korean weapons tests, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has stepped up defense cooperation with Washington this year, holding joint military exercises.
South Korea and the United States are due to begin their major annual joint military exercises, called the Ulchi Freedom Shield, in August. North Korea perceives these types of exercises as rehearsals for an invasion of its territory.
