North Korea fires ballistic missile as Blinken visits Seoul
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Missile flew 1,100km before splashing down in Sea of Japan. North Korea fired a ballistic missile out to sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea’s military reported. The missile flew 1,100km and landed between the Korean peninsula and Japan, the joint chiefs of staff said.
It was presumed to be a single “medium-range ballistic missile” launched from “somewhere in Pyongyang”, the military said. The Japanese defence ministry confirmed the projectile splashed down in the Sea of Japan just minutes after its launch was announced.
The launch came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited South Korea amid a deepening political crisis sparked by a shortlived declaration of martial law last month by now-impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol. Mr Blinken was reportedly holding talks with South Korean allies about the North Korean nuclear threat and other pressing matters.
At a year-end political conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had pledged to enforce the “toughest” anti-US policy. He had criticised Washington’s attempts to bolster security cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo, referring to it as a “nuclear military bloc for aggression”.
Monday’s launch was North Korea’s first in two months. Pyongyang fired at least seven ballistic missiles off its east coast on 5 November, hours before the US presidential election. The missiles flew to an altitude of 100km and covered a range of 400km before falling into the ocean outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
A few days earlier, North Korea had fired its largest intercontinental missile, which flew a record distance in a demonstration that it could strike the US. The launch of Hwasong-19 had drawn immediate condemnation from the UN as well as the US and its allies.
