Seoul: North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast in its third missile test this week, the South Korean military said, as US Vice President Kamala Harris warned the country against its “destabilising” weapons activities.
South Korean defence officials said they were analysing the data from the North Korean test on Thursday (US time) to help determine what type of missile North Korea launched. North Korea has conducted three missile tests since Sunday. In the previous two tests, it launched a total of three short-range ballistic missiles.
US Vice President Kamala Harris looks towards the north side of the border between North Korea and South at the Demilitarised Zone.Credit:Bloomberg
South Korean officials said they suspected that those missiles were probably KN-23s, a type of short-range ballistic missile that can manoeuvre during flight, making it harder to intercept.
The KN-23 is among a series of new missiles the North Korean military has been testing in recent years after the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, instructed it to develop “nuclear weapons smaller, lighter and tactical” to target South Korea, Japan and the US military bases in those two countries.
The three tests this week by North Korea took place as South Korea and the US conducted a four-day joint naval exercise that ended on Thursday off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. When President Joe Biden and President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea met in May, they agreed to expand joint military drills in order to demonstrate their combined deterrence against North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat.
Kamala Harris visits the UN Command Military Armistice Commission conference buildings at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone.Credit:Bloomberg
The North calls such military exercises rehearsals for invasion and has often countered them by conducting weapons tests.
The test on Thursday came hours after Harris met with Yoon in Seoul, South Korea, to discuss military and economic ties between the allies.
The US State Department condemned North Korea’s latest launch of ballistic missiles.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the launches are a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and demonstrate the threat Pyongyang poses to the region and the international community.
On Wednesday, the same day North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the waters off its east coast, Harris told The New York Times that her message for Kim was that “we believe that his recent activity has been destabilising and in many ways provocative” and that “we stand with our allies”.
The next day, while visiting the Demilitarised Zone that separated the two Koreas, she was asked about the recent test launches.
“It is clearly a provocation, and it is meant, we believe, to destabilise the region. And we’re taking it seriously, and everyone should,” she said.
Harris later said North Korea was under a “brutal dictatorship”.
“Our shared goal, the US and the Republic of Korea, is a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” Harris said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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