North Korea fires three ballistic missiles, Seoul military says
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired three ballistic missiles towards the Sea of Japan early Wednesday, Seoul's military said, just one day after President Joe Biden wrapped up his first Asia visit as US leader.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it had "detected at around 0600 (2100 GMT), 0637 and 0642 the firings of ballistic missiles launched from Sunan area."
Japan's coastguard warned of a "possible ballistic missile" launch from North Korea, telling vessels to stay away from fallen objects in the waters.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that Tokyo was trying to confirm information about the launch.
South Korea's new President Yoon Suk-yeol will oversee a meeting of the National Security Council at 0730 to discuss the launches, his office said.
Yoon, who was sworn in earlier this month, has vowed to get tough with Pyongyang after five years of failed diplomacy.
The Wednesday launches are the latest in a blitz of sanctions-busting weapons tests by Pyongyang this year, including test-firing intercontinental ballistic missiles at full range for the first time since 2017.
The latest apparent test come just days after Biden left South Korea Sunday after a trip overshadowed by US officials warning that Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un could carry out a nuclear test while Biden was in the region.
While in South Korea, Biden joined Yoon for talks, including discussing expanded military exercises to counter Kim's sabre rattling.
Joint exercises had been scaled back due to Covid and in order for Biden and Yoon's predecessors, Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in, to embark on a round of high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful diplomacy with North Korea.
Any build-up of forces or expansion of joint military exercises would likely enrage Pyongyang, which views the drills as rehearsals for invasion.
On his last day in Seoul, Biden told reporters he had a only a short message for Kim: "Hello. Period."
And he added that the United States was "prepared for anything North Korea does."
Covid and missiles
Kim has recently doubled down on his programme of military modernisation.
Despite struggling with a recent Covid-19 outbreak, new satellite imagery has indicated the North has resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor.
Earlier this month, North Korea confirmed its first ever Omicron cases in Pyongyang, and the virus has since torn through its unvaccinated population of 25 million.
More than three million people have been sick with "fever" North Korean state media said Wednesday, with 68 deaths since the outbreak began in late April.
How that crisis might impact Kim's decision on nuclear tests is one of the many unknowns that US and South Korean officials have been weighing.
On May 12, North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles the same day that leader Kim declared an "emergency" over the Covid outbreak.
A few days earlier, North Korea test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which itself came just three days after a separate ballistic missile launch.
North Korea's state media, which typically reports on weapons tests within 24 hours of a successful launch, has not commented on any of those tests.
South Korea said last week that North Korea's preparations for a nuclear test had been completed, and they were waiting for the right time.
South Korean officials were briefing the White House Thursday on the outcome of their pathfinding meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Seoul has already publicized that North Korea offered talks with the United States on denuclearization and normalizing ties, a potential diplomatic opening after a year of escalating tensions over the North's nuclear and missile tests. The rival Koreas also agreed to hold a leadership summit in late April.
Top Trump administration officials were getting a chance to hear firsthand from South Korean national security director, Chung Eui-yong, who led the delegation that went to Pyongyang. — Associated Press
South Korea's defense ministry says Thursday it was "closely monitoring" a North Korean nuclear reactor site after local media reported its operations had been temporarily suspended, potentially to extract weapons-grade plutonium.
The Donga Ilbo newspaper reports earlier in the day that intelligence sources in Seoul and Washington had detected signs the five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon had temporarily stopped operations late last month.
The suspension could be an indication that spent fuel rods are being reprocessed to extract plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, the report cited a government source as saying. — AFP
State media reports that North Korea's rubber-stamp legislature has enshrined the country's status as a nuclear weapons power in the constitution.
"The DPRK's nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything," leader Kim Jong Un said at a meeting of the State People's Assembly that was held Tuesday and Wednesday, the KCNA news agency says.
DPRK is the acronym for the country's formal name. — AFP
State news agency KCNA reports that North Korea announced it had built a "tactical nuclear attack submarine" as part of its effort to strengthen its naval force.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the unveiling ceremony on Wednesday, saying the new sub was part of a "push forward with the nuclear weaponization of the Navy in the future", according to KCNA.
The launching of submarine No. 841, named the Hero Kim Kun Ok, "heralded the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of the DPRK", the KCNA report said, referring to the country by the abbreviation of its formal name. — AFP
State-controlled media reports Sunday that North Korea staged a "simulated tactical nuclear attack" drill at the weekend with mock atomic warheads attached to two long-range cruise missiles that were test-fired into the ocean.
The Korean Central News Agency says the operation early Saturday was a "counteraction drill" in response to joint military activity by US and South Korean forces that KCNA said has escalated tensions in the region.
"A firing drill for simulated tactical nuclear attack was conducted at dawn of September 2 to warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger," KCNA reports. — AFP
Seoul's military says North Korea fired multiple cruise missiles off its west coast on Saturday, the latest in a string of recent Pyongyang military actions.
The launches come three days after the North launched a pair of short-range ballistic missiles as part of a "tactical nuclear strike drill" prompted by the annual US-South Korean Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises, which always infuriate the reclusive regime.
Pyongyang views such the drills as a rehearsal for invasion while the two allies say they are defensive in nature. — AFP
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