SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea tested two short-range ballistic missiles in another show of force on Tuesday, a day after the United States and South Korea began military drills that Pyongyang sees it as a repeat invasion.
The missiles launched from the southwestern coastal city of Jangyon flew over North Korea before landing at sea off that country’s east coast, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. South Koreans in a statement. He said the two missiles traveled about 620 kilometers (385 miles).
Reported flight distances suggest the missiles are targeting South Korea, which hosts about 28,000 US troops. The South Korean military called the launches a “serious provocation” that undermines the stability of the Korean peninsula.
The US Indo-Pacific Command said Tuesday’s launches posed no immediate threat to its allies. But he said the North’s recent tests highlight the “destabilizing impact” of the North’s illegal weapons programs and that the US security commitment to South Korea and Japan remains “ironclad”.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that officials were still gathering details of the North Korean launches and there were no immediate reports of damage in Japanese waters.
Pyongyang could further step up its weapons testing over the next few days in a tit-for-tat response to allied military drills, which are scheduled to run until March 23. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered his troops to be ready to repel what he called “frenzied war-preparation moves” by his country’s rivals.
Concerns over North Korea’s nuclear program rose sharply after the North tested more than 70 missiles in 2022, many of them nuclear-capable weapons, and openly threatened to use them in potential conflicts with states. United States and South Korea.
North Korea appears to be using stalled talks with Washington and expanding US-South Korean drills as a chance to expand its weapon arsenals to increase its influence in future relations with the United States.
North Korean threats, along with China’s growing assertiveness, have prompted the United States to seek to strengthen its alliances with South Korea and Japan. But some experts say stronger Washington-Seoul-Tokyo cooperation could spur Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow to strengthen their own trilateral ties.
China and Russia, embroiled in separate clashes with the United States, have repeatedly blocked attempts by the United States and its allies to toughen United Nations sanctions against North Korea.
Tuesday’s launches were the North’s second weapons test this week. On Monday, North Korea said it tested two cruise missiles from a submarine the day before. This implied that cruise missiles were being developed to carry nuclear warheads, although outside experts question whether Pyongyang has functioning nuclear missiles.
Missile systems launched by submarines are more difficult to detect and would provide the North with a second retaliatory attack capability. But experts say it would take years, considerable resources and major technological upgrades for the heavily sanctioned nation to build a fleet of submarines that can travel silently and execute strikes reliably.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that North Korea had refined its submarine launch capabilities since its first test in 2016, and that the US was studying Sunday’s launches to assess the potential. northern capabilities.
“But of course, we’re not going to let any action taken by North Korea deter or prevent us from taking the actions we believe are necessary to safeguard stability on the Korean Peninsula,” Sullivan said.
Joint U.S.-South Korean exercises that began on Monday include computer simulations involving North Korean aggression and other security scenarios and field exercises. The field drills would revert to the scale of larger allied spring exercises that last took place in 2018, according to South Korean defense officials.
Both countries have expanded their exercises as North Korean nuclear threats have grown.
The U.S.-South Korea drills will go ahead as normal whether or not “North Korea tries to disrupt them with provocations like missile launches,” Jeon Ha Gyu, spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of Health, said on Tuesday. Defense. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday that the United States had made it clear that it had no hostile intentions toward North Korea and that the allies’ longstanding drills were ” purely defensive in nature.
Holding phone calls for the second day in a row to discuss the North Korean launches, top South Korean and US nuclear envoys stressed on Tuesday that the North would face “clear consequences” for its actions, without specifying what those would be. this. They said the allies will remain “firmly ready” to respond to any kind of North Korean provocation, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.
Later this week, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is due to travel to Tokyo for a summit with Kishida, where the North Korean threat is expected to be a major topic. The shared security emergency brings Seoul and Tokyo closer together after years of disputes stemming from Japan’s colonial rule on the Korean peninsula before the end of World War II.
