North Korea fired several ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, as Pyongyang swiftly moved to extinguish Seoul’s hopes of an easing in tensions with a combative statement making clear it still regarded the South as a hostile enemy state.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the unidentified short-range missiles were launched at around 8:50 a.m. from near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, flying approximately 240 kilometres before landing in the sea. A suspected ballistic missile had also been detected the previous day, launched from near Pyongyang, which showed signs of an abnormality in the early stages of flight before disappearing, according to Yonhap news agency citing military officials.
The incidents mark North Korea’s fourth and fifth ballistic missile launches this year, following two in January and one in March. South Korea’s presidential Blue House convened an emergency National Security Council meeting on Wednesday, calling the launches a provocation that violated UN Security Council resolutions and urging Pyongyang to halt such tests.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said the missiles did not enter Japanese territorial waters or its exclusive economic zone and caused no damage, but warned that Pyongyang’s actions “threaten peace and security in the region and the international community.” Tokyo said it would coordinate with Seoul and Washington to monitor the situation.
Hopes of thaw dashed
The missile launches coincided with a blunt statement from a senior North Korean foreign ministry official that appeared designed to shut down what Pyongyang viewed as overly optimistic readings in the South about the prospect of reconciliation.
Jang Kum Chol said South Korea was engaging in wishful thinking if it believed Pyongyang was ready to view Seoul as anything other than an enemy. “The identity of the ROK, the enemy state most hostile to the DPRK, can never change with any words or conduct,” Jang was quoted as saying by state media KCNA.
The remarks stood in sharp contrast to a statement issued on Monday by Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, which described South Korean President Lee Jae Myung as “very fortunate and wise” for conveying regret to Pyongyang over drone incursions earlier this year — a comment some in Seoul had interpreted as a rare gesture of conciliation. Jang said that statement had amounted to a warning, not a friendly overture.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Pyongyang appeared determined to reassert its hostile-state framework while continuing weapons tests to reinforce its deterrence posture. “North Korea briefly acknowledged Seoul’s tension-easing efforts, but moved within a day to block hopeful interpretations and re-assert its hostile-state framework,” he said.
The Blue House responded by saying that insults and hostile rhetoric did “nothing to promote peace and stability” on the Korean peninsula, adding that Seoul would persist in its efforts toward peaceful coexistence. The two nations remain technically at war after their 1950-1953 conflict ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.
(Reuters)