SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its eastern coast on Thursday, fueling a build-up in military tensions after its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
South Korea’s defence ministry said the two missiles were fired around 5:20 am (2020 GMT Wednesday) and flew some 500 kilometres (300 miles), before landing in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) off the North Korean port city of Wonsan, a ministry spokesman said.
Short-range missile launches are a regular and relatively low-level item on North Korea’s long list of provocative gestures, and one it often employs to register annoyance.
The North fired six high-calibre rockets into the sea a week ago in protest at the adoption of tough, new sanctions on Pyongyang by the UN Security Council.
Those sanctions were imposed as a direct result of the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and last month’s space rocket launch, which was seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
Tensions have risen further this week with the launch of large-scale South Korean-US military exercises that Pyongyang responded to with threats of a pre-emptive nuclear attack.
And state media on Wednesday published photos of leader Kim Jong-Un posing with what was claimed to be a miniaturised nuclear warhead.
Kim praised the country’s nuclear scientists for mastering the miniaturisation technique, which would allow warheads to be fitted onto ballistic missiles and create a “true” nuclear deterrent.
The United States responded by urging the North and its leadership to curb their “provocative rhetoric” and behaviour.
“I’d say that the young man needs to pay more attention to the North Korean people and taking care of them, than in pursuing these sorts of reckless capabilities,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby said of Kim Jong-Un.
South Korea’s defence ministry was sceptical, saying its own assessment was that North Korea had “not yet secured miniaturised nuclear warheads”.
The miniaturisation issue is key because, while North Korea is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear weapons, its ability to deliver them accurately to a chosen target on the tip of a ballistic missile has been a subject of heated debate.
North Korea is expected to raise the rhetorical ante even further over the coming weeks as the military drills between South Korea and the United States continue.
Participation in the joint exercises — known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle — has been bumped up this year to involve 300,000 South Korean and around 17,000 US troops, as well as strategic US naval vessels and air force assets.
Pyongyang has long condemned the drills, which stretch over nearly two months, as provocative rehearsals for invasion, while Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature.
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