Shooting Missile launches have surged in recent weeks as North Korea sees US exercises as an invasion threat
South Korean media widely followed the launch and trajectory of the missile. — Ahn Young-joon/AP/SIPA
The Korean peninsula is still living under high tension. After a lull of a few days, North Korea launched a new ballistic missile. According to the South Korean General Staff, the projectile was updated fire around 10:48 a.m. (2:48 a.m. in France) from the Wonsan region, on the east coast, towards the Sea of Japan. This missile traveled 240 km a maximum altitude of 47 km.
At the same time, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui denounced South Korea’s joint military exercises with the United States and the strengthening of the alliance between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo. “The strengthening of “the US’extensive deterrence offer” and the daily increase in military activities of allied forces around the Korean Peninsula are senseless acts” ;” Choe Son Hui in a statement; published by the official KCNA news agency. The more Washington will strive to strengthen its security alliance; with Tokyo and Seoul, and “the fiercer the DPRK’s military response will be,” he promised.
“Send a message to states ”
According to him, the recent meetings between the leaders of the three countries bring “the situation on the Korean Peninsula into an unpredictable phase”. During a meeting on Tuesday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, US President Joe Biden attempted to to convince his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to intercede with North Korea so that it renounces its carry out a nuclear test, as Washington and Seoul claim they intend to do. Joe Biden, his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also on Sunday promised a “strong and firm” if Pyongyang carries out this test, which would be the first since 2017 and the seventh in its history.
Experts say Thursday’s missile launch appears to have been scheduled to coincide with the Ministerïs statement. North Korea “draw the missile after releasing the statement a few hours earlier. She’s trying to justify the launch and send a message to the US and Japan,” Cheong Seong, a researcher at the Sejong Institute in South Korea.