North Korea fired a suspected long-range ballistic missile Saturday, South Korea’s military said, Pyongyang’s first test in seven weeks that comes days before Seoul and Washington are due to start joint tabletop exercises.
A woman walks past a television showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on February 18, 2023. Anthony WALLACE / AFP
“The South Korean military maintains a full readiness posture while closely cooperating with the US and strengthening surveillance and vigilance,” it added in a statement. Military tensions have risen on the Korean peninsula after a year in which North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state and carried out sanctions-busting weapons tests nearly every month, including firing intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The exercise next week will focus on “joint planning, joint management and joint response with Washington’s nuclear assets” in case of a nuclear attack, a South Korean defence ministry official told AFP on Friday. “North Korea has warned of retaliation over the upcoming US-South Korea drills,” he told AFP, adding: “Kim Jong Un seems to want to confront the issue with a tit-for-tat approach.”South Korea’s hawkish President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office in May 2022, has vowed to get tough on North Korea and is pushing to beef up America’s so-called extended deterrence, under which US nuclear assets offer protection to regional allies.
In December, it sent five drones across the border into Seoul’s airspace, including skies near its presidential office.
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