North Korea fired a suspected short-range ballistic missile after the influential sister of the state’s leader threatened the US with severe consequences if it goes ahead with joint military drills with South Korea.
(Bloomberg) — North Korea fired a suspected short-range ballistic missile after the influential sister of the state’s leader threatened the US with severe consequences if it goes ahead with joint military drills with South Korea.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters the missile was fired at around 6:20 p.m. Thursday from the western port city of Nampho toward the Yellow Sea. The launch adds to a barrage of rockets Pyongyang has shot off in recent weeks, including an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.
Further details on the launch weren’t immediately available. The missile went on a rare path toward waters between the Korean Peninsula and China. Almost all of North Korea’s missiles are fired toward waters off its east coast.
Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of leader Kim Jong Un said North Korea is monitoring the “restless military moves by the US forces” and its South Korean “puppet military,” adding that Pyongyang is “on standby to take appropriate, quick and overwhelming action at any time according to our judgment,” the official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday.
The US and South Korea are preparing to hold their Freedom Shield exercises from March 13-23, drills designed to bolster their defenses against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. The drills are expected to be some of the largest the two have held in years.
South Korea’s spy agency on Tuesday briefed lawmakers in parliament on information that North Korea may test-launch its new solid-fueled ICBMs by next month.
Kim Yo Jong had previously warned Pyongyang would turn the Pacific into a “firing range” if the US continued drills. She also hinted the state could start testing whether its warhead designs can withstand the heat of reentering the atmosphere.
The last time North Korea launched a missile into the Pacific was October 2022, when it fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, flying about 4,600 kilometers (2,860 miles), and marking the longest distance traveled by one of its missiles to date.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office in May, brought back joint military exercises with the US. The drills had been scaled down or halted under former President Donald Trump, who was hoping the move would facilitate his nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
–With assistance from Sangmi Cha and Jeong-Ho Lee.
(Updates with details.)
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