SEOUL: North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern sea, South Korea’s military said, adding to a recent streak in weapons testing that is apparently in protest of the U.S. sending major naval assets to South Korea in a show of force.
In its third round of launches since last week, North Korea fired the missiles just before midnight from an area near its capital, Pyongyang, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
It said both missiles traveled around 400 kilometers before landing in waters off the Korean Peninsula’s eastern coast.
Its statement called North Korea’s missile launches a “grave provocation” that threatens regional peace and stability.
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his government lodged a protest to North Korea over the launches, which is usually conveyed through its embassy in Beijing.
He said Tokyo was doing its utmost for surveillance while stepping up trilateral security cooperation with Washington and Seoul.
No damage has been reported related to the missiles, which, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry, fell outside the country’s exclusive economic zone.
The launches came hours after South Korea’s navy said a nuclear-propelled U.S. submarine — the USS Annapolis — arrived at a port on Jeju Island.
That underscored the allies’ efforts to boost the visibility of U.S. strategic assets in the region to intimidate the North.
Last week, the USS Kentucky became the first U.S. nuclear-armed submarine to come to South Korea since the 1980s.
North Korea reacted to its arrival by test-firing ballistic and cruise missiles last week in apparent demonstrations that it could make nuclear strikes on South Korea and deployed U.S. naval vessels.
Conversation about King
The American-led U.N. Command said it has started “a conversation” with North Korea about a U.S. soldier who ran into the North last week across one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders.
Andrew Harrison, a British lieutenant general who is deputy commander at the U.N. Command, which oversees implementation of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War, declined to comment about the state of the inquiry to North Korea or say what the command knows about Private Travis King’s condition.
“I am in life an optimist, and I remain optimistic,” Harrison said during a news conference in Seoul.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said North Korea had only “acknowledged” receiving the U.N. message last week and had not provided any information or commented further since then.
“There have been no new contacts since last week,” Miller said, adding that North Korea also had not responded to messages sent by U.S. civilian or military officials.
North Korea has remained publicly silent about King, who crossed the border during a tour of Panmunjom while he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.
(VOA)
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