SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile towards its eastern waters on Wednesday, its neighbors said, two days after the North threatened “shocking” consequences to protest what it said. he called provocative American reconnaissance activity near his territory.
The South Korean military detected the launch of a long-range missile from the northern capital region around 10:00 a.m., South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. He said the South Korean military has strengthened its surveillance posture and maintained preparedness in close coordination with the United States.
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters that the North Korean missile was likely launched on a high trajectory, at a steep angle that North Korea typically uses to avoid neighboring countries when testing missiles. long-range missiles.
Hamada said the missile was to land at sea about 550 kilometers (340 miles) east of the Korean Peninsula coast outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
North Korea’s long-range missile program targets the mainland United States Since 2017, North Korea has conducted a series of intercontinental ballistic missile launches as part of its effort to acquire nuclear-tipped weapons capable of hit major American cities. Some experts say that North Korea still has technologies to master in order to possess functional nuclear ICBMs.
Ahead of Wednesday’s launch, the North’s last long-range missile test came in April, when it launched a solid-fueled ICBM, a type of weapon that experts say is harder to detect and to intercept only liquid fuel weapons.
Wednesday’s launch, the North’s first weapons firing in about a month, came after North Korea released a series of statements earlier this week accusing the United States of flying a military plane near the North Korea to spy on the North.
The United States and South Korea have rejected the North’s accusations and urged it to refrain from any actions or speeches that arouse animosity.
In a statement on Monday evening, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean sister Kim Jong Un, warned the United States of “a shocking incident” as she claimed the US spy plane flew overhead. the North Eastern Exclusive Economic Zone eight times earlier. during the day. She claimed the North had dispatched warplanes to chase the American plane.
In another fiery statement on Tuesday, Kim Yo Jong said the US military would experience “a very critical flight” if it continued its illicit aerial espionage activities. The Northern Army separately threatened to shoot down American spy planes.
“Kim Yo-jong’s belligerent statement against US surveillance planes is part of a North Korean pattern of inflating external threats to rally domestic support and justify weapons testing,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “Pyongyang is also timing its shows of force to disrupt what it perceives as diplomatic coordination against it, in this case, the meeting of South Korean and Japanese leaders at the NATO summit.”
North Korea has made numerous similar threats over alleged US reconnaissance activities, but its latest statements came amid heightened animosities over North Korea’s barrage of missile tests earlier this year.
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Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo.