North Korea fired two ballistic missiles on Monday from its east coast. The warning was issued by South Korean military authorities and later confirmed by North Korean state media. Kim Jong-Un’s sister left the warning: North Korea could turn the Pacific into a “shooting range” if the US continues to collaborate with South Korea, increasing tensions in the region.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense said, for its part, that North Korea launched two projectiles that reached a maximum altitude of about 100 kilometers and 50 kilometers, covering a distance of about 350 to 400 kilometers on Monday at 10 p.m. in mainland Portugal. All of the projectiles landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, as reported by public broadcaster NHK.
“North Korea’s series of actions, including its repeated ballistic missile launches, threatens the peace and security of Japan, the region, and the international community,” the ministry said. “Japan has strongly condemned North Korea.”
There were no reports of damage to aircraft or vessels.
North Korean leader Kim Yo Jong’s sister issued a statement in which she took a stand against the increasingly frequent presence of US strategic assets on the Korean peninsula.
“We are carefully examining the influence it will have on the security of our state,” reads the statement. “How often we use the Pacific as our firing range depends on the character of US forces.”
The launch comes two days after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the sea off Japan’s west coast in what it called a “sudden launch exercise”.
kim Yo Jung also refuted the experts’ analysis — after some of them stressed that the “sudden” launch took more than nine hours to happen after the leader’s order — and said that South Korea did not even have reconnaissance planes on site at the time of the attack. launch.
“They will defend the fact that the reconnaissance planes were not flying at that time by saying that they were monitoring with alleged special means and methods, under close cooperation between the secret services of South Korea and the US,” he said.
Monday’s launch is North Korea’s third major weapons test this year. The tests come after Pyongyang pledged an “unprecedented persistent and strong response” at a time when South Korea and the US are preparing to hold joint military exercises, as they have done every year, part of an effort to combat the growing nuclear and missile threat that North Korea poses.