North Korea fired eight ballistic missiles in two weeks in a climate of heightened tensions with Washington, according to the South Korean army which recorded two new shots overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
• Read also: North Korea fires two missiles, flies 12 fighter jets in formation
Earlier Saturday, Pyongyang had defended its recent increase in ballistic activity as a “legitimate reaction” to “direct military threats from the United States”, while Washington, Seoul and Tokyo see these missile launches as a “serious threat for peace and security”.
During the night, Pyongyang fired two of these machines towards the sea, announced the South Korean army, quoted by the news agency Yonhap.
Citing the Japanese government, the Japanese agency Kyodo specified that the two missiles had been fired in the direction of the Sea of Japan and that they appeared to have fallen outside of the exclusive economic zone of Japan.
According to the country’s coastguard, no damage to a Japanese vessel has been reported, Japanese broadcaster NHK said.
These are the seventh and eighth such firings in two weeks, and they come amid growing tensions with the United States, which during the same period intensified its joint military exercises with Seoul and Tokyo.
“While strengthening its surveillance and vigilance, our army remains ready to enter into action immediately, in close cooperation with the United States”, reacted the South Korean joint staff in a press release quoted by Yonhap.
“Regular self-defense”
North Korean missile tests have increased in the past two weeks. Two ballistic missiles were fired on Thursday, and two days earlier the North had launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan, which forced some of the archipelago’s inhabitants to go to the shelter.
“The missile launch test by the [Corée du Nord] is a regular and planned self-defense measure to defend the country’s security and regional peace against direct military threats from the United States that have lasted more than half a century,” the aviation agency said on Saturday. North Korean civilian without specifying which launch it was, according to the official KCNA agency.
State media released the statement after the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which holds its annual meeting in Montreal, on Friday condemned the ballistic tests carried out by Pyongyang in recent months and called them classified as hazards to civil aviation.
The reclusive country considers this resolution adopted by the ICAO as “a political provocation by the United States and its vassal forces aimed at undermining [sa] sovereignty”.
For their part, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have intensified their joint military exercises in recent weeks and carried out new maneuvers on Thursday involving a US Navy destroyer.
The Pyongyang firing comes amid a record year of weapons testing by the communist regime of North Korea, which leader Kim Jong-un has said is an ‘irreversible’ nuclear power , thus ending the possibility of denuclearization talks.
The United States on Friday announced economic sanctions against two individuals and three entities accused of involvement in the illegal export of oil to North Korea.
Washington, Tokyo and Seoul participated in a trilateral meeting on the same day and agreed to “continue to closely coordinate their short- and long-term responses, including with allies and United Nations partners,” the Department of Defense said. US state in a statement.
North Korea issued a new statement on Saturday in which it said it was “very closely following the extremely worrying development of the current situation”, in reference to the deployment of the American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan during the joint US-South Korean maneuvers this week.
The exercises carried out jointly by Seoul and Washington arouse the anger of Pyongyang, the North Korean regime considering them as the repetition of an invasion.
These maneuvers are “extremely provocative and threatening,” KCNA said on Saturday, seeing in the participation of the USS Ronald Reagan “a kind of [coup de] military bluff.
Analysts say Pyongyang has taken advantage of dissension in the UN Security Council to carry out ever more provocative weapons tests.
In addition, Seoul and Washington have been warning for months that Pyongyang will carry out another nuclear test, likely after the Chinese Communist Party congress due to open on October 16.