South Korea's military said North Korea on Saturday fired one suspected long-range missile from its capital toward the sea, a day after it threatened to take strong measures against South Korea and the U.S. over their joint military exercises.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said the ballistic missile was fired at around 5:22 p.m. from an area in Sunan, the site of Pyongyang's international airport, where the North has conducted most of its intercontinental ballistic missile tests in recent years. The South Korean military didn't immediately say where the weapon landed.
The office of South Korean President Yun Suk Yeol said his national security director, Kim Sung-han, was presiding over an emergency security meeting to discuss the launch. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tokyo was closely communicating with Washington and Seoul over the launch, which he described as “an act of violence that escalates provocation toward the international order.”
Those missiles included a new system experts say is possibly linked to the North's stated desire to acquire a solid-fuel ICBM. North Korea's existing ICBMs, including Hwasong-17s, use liquid propellants that require pre-launch injections and cannot remain fueled for prolonged periods. A solid-fuel alternative would take less time to prepare and is easier to move around on vehicles, providing less opportunity to be spotted.
Kim doubled down on his nuclear push entering 2023, calling for an “exponential increase” in the country's nuclear warheads, mass production of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting “enemy” South Korea and the development of more advanced ICBMs. Heo said the two countries will also conduct joint field exercises in mid-March that would be bigger than those held in the past few years.
North Korea has traditionally described U.S.-South Korea military exercises as rehearsals for a potential invasion, while the allies insist that their drills are defensive in nature.
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