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 fired 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 at 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 reinforcement of the ‘American offer of extended deterrence’ and the daily increase in military activities of the allied forces around the Korean peninsula are senseless acts,” Choe Son Hui said in a statement carried by the news agency. official KCNA. The more Washington tries to strengthen its security alliance with Tokyo and Seoul, “the fiercer the DPRK’s military response will be”, he promised.
“Send a message to the United 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 Tuesday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, US President Joe Biden tried to convince his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to intercede with North Korea so that it gives up carrying out a nuclear test, as Washington and Seoul lend him the intention. Joe Biden, his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also promised a “strong and firm” response on Sunday if Pyongyang carries out this test, which would be the first since 2017 and the seventh in its story.
Experts say Thursday’s missile launch appears to have been timed to coincide with the minister’s statement. North Korea “fired the missile after issuing the statement hours earlier. She is trying to justify the launch and send a message to the United States and Japan,” said Cheong Seong, a researcher at the Sejong Institute in South Korea.