News of the missile launch came hours after North Korea warned it would respond to US efforts to strengthen its security presence in the Asia-Pacific.
According to officials in Seoul, North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward its eastern seaboard, hours after threatening a “more decisive military response” to US efforts to strengthen security presence in the region.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said an “unidentified ballistic missile” was fired on Thursday, but did not provide further details.
Pyongyang tested a record number of rockets this year, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that is likely to fail, while Washington and Seoul have expand scope and scale in their joint military exercises.
Some drills involve Japan.
Amid tensions, the leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan held trilateral talks on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Cambodia last week and pledged to work together to continue “strengthening deterrence capacity”.
In a statement following the discussions, US President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “strongly condemn” the “unprecedented number of ballistic missile launches”. of North Korea and pledged to “forge closer and closer trilateral links. in security and beyond.”
They also warned Pyongyang against conducting a seventh nuclear test, with Mr Biden reiterating that the US commitment to defend Seoul and Tokyo was “supported by the full range of capabilities, including nuclear”. .
North Korea condemned Thursday’s trilateral summit, with Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui saying the three countries’ “exercises for aggression” would not contain her country but instead that would present “a more serious, real and inevitable threat” to themselves.
“The more the US is concerned with the ‘proposal to strengthen extended deterrence’ to its allies, and the more it increases its provocative and deceptive military activities… the more North Korea’s military response will be. Tien will be even more fierce,” Choe said in a statement officially published by KCNA.
She calls her country by the initials of its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“America will be well aware that they are gambling and will certainly regret it,” she said.
Choe added that North Korea’s military activities were a “lawful and fair response” to the US-led drills.
